Taxing or Taking? Property Rhetoric and the Justice of Taxation

Abstract

This chapter draws attention to a puzzle about the relevance of the concept of property to studies of taxation. On the one hand, rhetorical appeals to property rights are prevalent in popular debates about taxation. On the other hand, property theorists do not tend to apply their work directly to the analysis of taxation. Moreover, some theorists of taxation have suggested that the concept of property is neither important nor relevant to the study of taxation. What are we to make of this mismatch between popular rhetoric and theoretical argument? Chapter 4 illustrates some ways in which conceptual work on property is directly relevant to the study of taxation, and argues that taxation should occupy a more prominent place in the jurisprudence of property than it currently does.