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Wednesday, March 1, 2023
Bearer-Good friend Presents Ballot Taxes, Revisited Right now At Northwestern
Jeremy Bearer-Good friend (George Washington; Google Scholar) presents Ballot Taxes, Revisited at Northwestern immediately as a part of its Superior Matters in Taxation Colloquium hosted by Gregg Polsky:
In america, the time period “ballot tax” conjures a really particular historic episode: the usage of tax coverage to forestall voting by Black residents. Whereas “ballot tax” is an correct descriptor of those taxes, ballot taxes have a way more expansive historical past inside the twentieth century.
Following within the wealthy custom of comparative tax scholarship that appears at a number of jurisdictions to reach at broader tax coverage conclusions, this Article examines 4 distinct ballot taxes utilized by Anglophone governments within the twentieth century. After introducing the statutory textual content, design options, and democratic context of every of those twentieth century ballot taxes, the Article makes three unique claims about ballot taxes.
First, my comparative analysis on twentieth century ballot taxes reveals how common language in tax statutes is used to successfully goal political enemies.
By contrasting two ballot taxes the place race, ethnicity, or ancestry are explicitly talked about within the regulation with two ballot taxes the place there isn’t any point out of race, ethnicity, or ancestry, I uncover that the ballot taxes that don’t point out particular political targets may be equally efficient—if no more efficient—at reaching discriminatory objectives than ballot taxes that specify their targets. These tax coverage classes about the usage of common language for the aim of political focusing on are generalizable to different types of taxation aside from ballot taxes.
Second, twentieth century ballot taxes have an inconsistent relationship to voting. By analyzing ballot taxes utilized in nondemocracies the place taxpayers didn’t have the proper to vote, in democracies the place taxpayers loved full citizenship, and in partial democracies the place voting rights had been nominally obtainable however substantively denied, the Article complicates our understanding of twentieth century ballot taxes. Though ballot taxes should not reducible to a “value on voting,” they reveal in all circumstances the function of taxation in shaping membership in a political group.
Third, I reveal that the oft repeated declare in tax scholarship in regards to the simplicity of ballot taxes is fake in all instances. This conclusion is necessary not as a result of ballot taxes are an imminent coverage precedence, however as a result of it overturns a longstanding bias used to evaluate the simplicity of non-poll taxes. To the extent we consider within the fantasy of simply administered ballot taxes, revenue taxes or wealth taxes are portrayed as comparatively complicated. This administrability tradeoff doesn’t really exist. Ballot tax administration is an enormously complicated endeavor as measured throughout a number of definitions of complexity.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/03/bearer-friend-presents-poll-taxes-revisited-today-at-northwestern.html
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