What do citizens owe to the common treasury, and how should the burden be shared?
Every government lives on what its people pay it, and every payer wonders what is fair. What is owed to the common treasury, and by what rule should the burden be shared?
The picture
What the numbers show, read from the Data library each time the page opens.
How to read the chart above, and the words it uses (for tax revenue).
How to read the data
The figure is what central governments collect in taxes, set against the size of the economy. It does not include what local governments collect, so it understates the whole in countries where they raise much of the revenue.
Key terms
Tax revenue
Compulsory payments to government, such as taxes on income, goods and property, not counting fines or fees.
Central government
The national level of government, as distinct from regional and local authorities.
Share of GDP
A sum set against the total value of what a country produces in a year.
Who has a stake
Each interest, then readings from the Catholic library and the Classics library that bear on it, oldest first. Choose a group to read.
That what is asked is fair, certain, no more than the common good needs, and spent for that good.
That the schools, courts, roads and care they cannot buy for themselves are funded, and not cut for the sake of lower taxes.
That the system is clear and predictable, and that taxes do not discourage the work that makes the revenue.
To raise what the common good needs honestly and without arbitrary demands, and to be trusted with the use of it.
For discussion
By what rule should the burden be shared, in proportion to ability, to benefit received, or to need, and what does each rule leave out?
Cicero and Smith both warned against levies that are arbitrary or unexpected. Why might certainty matter as much as the amount?
If paying taxes is a duty of co-responsibility for the common good, what do those who spend the money owe in return?
