The Tax Assignment Problem: Ruminations on How Theory and Practice Depend on History

Abstract

This paper discusses how the theory and the practice of tax assignment—which level of government should tax what, and how—depend on history. It describes the meaning and methods of tax assignment, reviews implications of Musgrave's three-branch view of public finance, notes the importance of accretions to knowledge—of the technology of taxation and of the economic effects of taxation, speculates about how economic evolution affects the conventional wisdom on tax assignment, identifies questionable tax assignments found in various federations that are legacies of history, and emphasizes the danger of assuming "one size fits all" in tax assignment.

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