Newsgroup: italia.firenze.discussioni
Titolo: [flat tax] oggi è proprio il giorno del  Vannini...

dopo il mandato di cattura europeo, béccati quest'articolo che ho trovato 
su usenet:
Richard A. Epstein
       31.01.05
       Often it is said that the flat tax is passé, a posterchild of the
small government movement of the 1990s.
       In fact, announcements of its intellectual death are premature.
The reality is that the flat tax is robust and unique, and outstrips its
competitors - the head tax and the progressive tax - in fairness and
efficiency.
       The head tax (also known as a poll tax) is a fixed exaction on
individuals that does not vary with the amount of income received.
       Head taxes attract an enormous amount of well-founded popular
hostility, as the Thatcher Government discovered. Under a progressive
tax structure, the rate of taxation increases as taxable income
increases. Marginal dollars (the last dollar earned) are subject to
higher rates of tax than inframarginal dollars. How much higher is an
open question.
       With a flat tax the rate of taxation is constant regardless of the
amount of income earned.
       If everybody in society had identical social positions and income,
a head tax would lose its sting. Each citizen would carry an equal
burden and no single person would be unfairly disadvantaged.
       But society is heterogeneous. For a person who earns little the
head tax could exceed their income. Flat dues for everybody might be
appropriate for country club membership, but there will be no political
willingness to tolerate a taxation system along similar lines.
       So the head tax can be knocked out of contention. The question
then becomes: is a flat tax or a progressive tax better?
       A progressive tax can have a marginal rate for the first dollar at
30 per cent and a marginal rate for the last dollar at 30.1 per cent.
Alternatively, a tax also counts as progressive if it starts at zero and
goes up to 100 per cent. Anyone who favours a progressive tax must
decide which tax rate structure they support out of the billions that
could be conjured up.
       The defender of the progressive tax will point to the undisputed
proposition of the diminishing marginal utility of wealth.
       But it is impossible to come up with a principled, intellectual
way of determining the extent of diminishing marginal utility of wealth,
just as it is impossible to come up with a principled, intellectual way
of setting the marginal increases in the rate of the progressive tax.
Thus the task becomes a purely political matter.
       Without principled argument, it is difficult to avoid a strong
division of opinion and clash of wills.
       Legitimacy becomes difficult to obtain or retain. The process of
figuring out the optimal level of progressivity will create uncertainty
and dissipate political capital that could be better spent on more
productive activities.
       If a government adopts a low level of progressivity - say an
"almost-flat-tax" that increases from 20 to 25 per cent - the quizzical
response is "why bother?". The government will not gain enough extra
revenue to make it worthwhile, yet must bear the costs of the extra
administrative complexity.
       A person on a low income will obtain a slightly larger share of a
somewhat smaller pie as the progressive tax shrinks the economy
somewhat. The people at the high end of the scale will receive a smaller
share of a smaller pie. This is a lose-lose situation.
       Implementing a much steeper tax scale runs into a fresh set of
problems. Decisions by citizens about where to set up their homes and
businesses are not independent of the tax system. This is a dynamic
world.
       Faced with a steep progressive rate, some enterprising and
better-off people will leave, depriving those left behind of their
expertise and tax contributions.
       Once a government has decided on a flat tax, it does not need to
face periodic alterations to its form. If the government needs greater
revenue it simply raises the flat rate. If it needs less, it lowers the
rate. The tilt in taxation is thus taken out of the political process,
reducing friction.
       Another advantage of a flat tax is that the same amount will be
collected by the government regardless of the taxpayer's identity, for
instance, whether the employer or employee pays tax on fringe benefits.
       Under a progressive tax system, who pays and when they pay become
important. This leads to inefficient economic transactions designed to
obtain private gains with no social benefit.
       What of the argument that a progressive tax is fairer because it
redistributes resources to those who need them most?
       The response is that the tax system should not be the only
mechanism for redistribution. First, the government should sort out the
provision of public goods, then get private markets organised and
regulated efficiently.
       Only when these jobs are complete should it consider how many
people need substantial assistance or protection. If the first two tasks
have been done well, the number of people in need should shrink over
time in a growing economy.
       Transfers are a more efficient, powerful and comprehensive means
of redistribution than progressive taxation.
       Thus, a flat tax system could be coupled with a transfer system
based on criteria that establish who should qualify for welfare
assistance.
       Yet even without that explicit mechanism, a flat tax itself brings
about significant redistribution when used to fund social programmes.
Those on higher incomes pay more in absolute terms but often make less
use of government services.
       The redistributive aspect of a flat tax is even greater when
non-pecuniary income is taken into account.
       Individual wealth is more comprehensive than a simple measure of
individual property and money in the bank. Wealth can be thought of as
the sum of hedonic pleasures and financial assets.
       Hedonic pleasures include things as mundane (and vital) as good
health, happy relationships, being able to laugh and enjoy life.
       When somebody's income is taxed and that person is supplied with,
for example, police protection, the government is not only protecting
their property but also their liberty and hedonic resources, both of
which fall outside the conventional tax base.
       A flat tax hits financial wealth but the revenues it generates are
used to protect both financial and hedonic resources. It follows, then,
that redistribution will occur towards people who are relatively poor in
financial terms.
       A move to a low single rate of tax would not mean tax increases on
low income earners. Also, they would not face higher tax rates as their
incomes rose and they would share in the benefits of faster economic
growth a better tax structure would generate.
       When the overall questions of wealth production and wealth
transfer are combined, the flat tax emerges as a powerful, durable and
simple idea.
       Hong Kong and Singapore are countries with "almost-flat taxes".
       Russia has introduced a flat tax of 13 per cent and Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Georgia and Romania all
have relatively low flat taxes.
       It is ironic that the flat tax is popular in former communist
countries. It was Karl Marx, in his Communist Manifesto of 1848, who was
among the first to call for "a heavy progressive or graduated income
tax" at a time when a flat rate was the norm in the early
industrialising countries.
       It is no accident that every strong defender of limited government
has gravitated toward the flat tax. This is true of John Locke, Adam
Smith and Friedrich Hayek.
       Nobody would try to put themselves in that league, but I shall
cast my vote with the giants and let those who dissent find some other
champion - perhaps Karl Marx.

 Smith and Friedrich Hayek.
veramente proprio in Adam Smith si può trovare una primo sostegno all'
imposta progressiva, quando afferma che tutti devono ricevere lo stesso
danno e quindi il sacrificio di un contribuente deve essere uguale a quello
di un altro
vabbè, è la nota posizione neocon, destrutturare lo Stato.

 Di qui l'intervento pubblico.
d'accordo, ma un po' di chiarezza non farebbe male. oggi in Italia abbiamo 
talmente tante tasse accumulatesi nel tempo, a tal punto che nessuna di 
loro ha in se una giustificazione morale/politica (es.: io stato metto 
questa imposta al fine di..., ed è giusta perché la ratio è...), ma sono 
tutte dei piccoli pezzi di un puzzle che hanno come fine il fare cassa, il 
raggiungere una determinata cifra necessaria a coprire le spese.
prendi per esempio la tassazione della benzina: è un insieme di imposte 
(alcune provvisorie -divenute poi nell'oblio generale definitive- come 
quelle per assistere i terremotati o finanziare la guerra in etiopia), ma 
nessuno è in grado di dire perché la benzina deve avere quell'imposizione 
fiscale: perché proprio il ~300%? perché no il 250%? o il 350%? o il 20%?


Ah, ma su questo siamo perfettamente d'accordo! In effetti, tutti i discorsi
che facciamo sulla tassazione ottimale poi vengono meno per il sovrapporsi
di balzi e balzelli che hanno solo lo scopo di far quadrare i conti. Una
semplificazione è assolutamente necessaria (e per la verità Visco cominciò a
mettervi mano, abolendone un discreto numero, se non ricordo male).
Del resto, tra  i 5-6 corsi di Diritto che ho frequentato all'Università e
di cui ho sostenuto l'esame, Diritto Tributario è quello che mi è piaciuto
meno, proprio perchè manca della sistematicità che dovrebbe essere propria
la materia giuridica.