Tax Equity and Fairness

Post an evaluation of two types of taxes (e.g.,
property, income, sales, etc.) using the criteria in the Mikesell text. Then,
explain whether you consider the taxes fair and equitable, and why. Describe
how tax equity coexists with a government’s need to collect taxes for revenue.

Excerpt from Mikesell (2018):
Criteria
for judging taxes and tax systems have been proposed by many observers, but
there has been a substantial conformity among those standards. The grandfather
of evaluation standards appears in The Wealth of Nations (1776),
as Adam Smith proposes four classic maxims that should guide taxation in a
market-based economy:
I.
The subjects of every state ought to contribute
towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to
their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they
respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
II.
The tax which each individual is bound to pay
ought to be certain and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of
payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the
contributor, and to every other person.
III.
Every tax ought to be levied at the time or in
the manner in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to
pay it.
IV.
Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to
take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible,
over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.15

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