ABSTRACT
Few public policy debates generate more regular outrage than taxation. Despite this salience, and the clear moral dimensions of tax policy, philosophers rarely weigh in on this part of political life. Economists, on the other hand, study tax policy in detail, but almost always within a utility-maximizing normative framework—optimal tax theory—which moral philosophers and the public reject. This chapter considers rebuilding taxation on a normative foundation of desert. The most important elements of a desert-based tax system are (1) a tax on economic rents, to include a confiscatory top marginal income tax rate; (2) taxes on negative externalities, like pollution; and (3) a new inheritance tax. A common theme of these taxes is that they are efficient. Although desert and meritocracy are sometimes regarded as conservative ideals, they require tax policies which are, by contemporary standards, progressive.
