Tax justice perspectives in times of fiscal transformation

A critical classification

Abstract

This article analyzes the idea of tax justice in the context of comprehensive social and fiscal transformations. While tax justice was historically linked primarily to the legitimacy of political rule, today it has largely become a question of administrative distribution mechanisms. Fundamental political questions—why levies are legitimate in the first place, who is liable to pay them, or how government revenues are justified—have been supplanted by detailed discussions about fair burden sharing and efficient tax collection.

The text shows that modern tax systems are based on certain unspoken premises: the universality and equality of tax liability, the monetization of government revenues, the link to a currency, and the individual as the tax reference point. However, these principles are historically recent and culturally specific. At the same time, traditional assumptions such as the complementary relationship between taxes and debt are coming under pressure, as new forms of debt sometimes circumvent classic democratic control mechanisms and reinforce structural inequalities in tax planning options. Various modern examples, not least the US, also show how institutional path dependencies and a seemingly ‘fair’ burden and relief of labor, production, and consumption can lead to growing debt, social inequality, and political reform blockages in the long term.

Against this backdrop, the article argues for a broader understanding of tax justice that takes into account not only the distribution of the tax burden, but also political power relations, economic conditions, historical forms of revenue, and global contexts. Tax justice concerns should therefore not be based solely on moral philosophy, but should be embedded in political social theory that discloses its own normative assumptions. In view of global inequalities, growing mountains of debt, and new fiscal policy instruments, classic models of tax justice appear inadequate and in need of reform.