Economics, ethics and taxation: the foundations of the inequality

Abstract

In recent years, a way of conceiving the Economic science became dominant, an understanding of economics as “engineering”. In this sense, the economics is seen as a problem of management, logistics, as if the resolution of economic problems had to be done from “mathematical models”. In this essay, instead, what we sought was to rescue the economics as a philosophical problem, economics as “ethics”, explaining the economic phenomenon by immersing this in a context of intersubjectivity that characterizes human relations. The problematic established by this background specifically evaluates the relationship between economics and taxation, since the state will be a key agent in the modern economy, whereas taxation is the main form of state economic intervention today. From this relationship, settles the central question of this paper: what is the relationship between economics, ethics and taxation? It was found that the discussions about these three points are guided by a foundation criterion, eg. always bet on some kind of notion of equality. Thus, to discuss the correctness of certain economic relations or the legitimacy/validity of a particular form of taxation, there is need to confront the political theory that supports the notion of equality in a particular community, since it will be from this conception that will fix the limits of acceptable inequality and the role of agents in economic and tax relations.