ABSTRACT
The contribution which Adam Smith, as a student and a man of systematizing mind, made to the doctrines of the time was to remove them out of this comparatively isolated condition and bring them into relation with the theory of tax distribution. Adam Smith's systematisation of tax principles implied the idea that the only purpose of taxation is to raise revenue for state services, and his influence has been in the direction of supporting the dogma that no other purposes should be involved in taxes. Adam Smith accepted the assumption of the seventeenth and eighteenth century that taxation is made up of non-compensatory taxes, and discussed each tax by itself. The two primary elements of the eighteenth-century theory of taxation were, therefore, negative—maxims defining what to avoid. On the one hand, avoid direct assessment on means or income; on the other, avoid taxes on necessaries and the poor.
