Il rapporto tra etica e fisco al centro della riflessione del pensiero laico e religioso. Un'analisi dei principali contributi

In 1789 the representatives of the French people, constituted in the National Assembly made the following solemn statement: " Whereas the violation of human rights are the sole causes of public malaise and the corruption of governments," recognized and proclaimed the "Rights of ' man and of the citizen " and, among these, there were also those related to the state budget: art. 13 of the Declaration, "To cover the expenses necessary to ensure public order and the administrative action is essential that all citizens contribute owing to their ability to pay". There is no difference in particular in the field of public governance, which falls between the management and administration of taxation, between the Ethical behavior required of all: taxpayers, tax authorities and tax Courts and the administration of fair taxation. In taxation we can make the following statements. First, there is no clear separation between ethics and tax law. Second, ethics means respect for the principles powered of equality, solidarity and ability to pay as they are carved in our Constitution, as it has been taught by the great scholars also Italian tax law and financial science. In fact, economists have been the first who have investigated the phenomenon of the Ethical foundation in the tax ratio. The four fiscal rules laid down by Adam Smith (equality, certainty, convenience of payment, economy in collection) are in fact still quite valid. The first and perhaps one of the most importants economists who analyzed the concept of ability to pay in doctrine was the Italian Ezio Vanoni. Ezio Vanoni in the nineteen explained that "tax must be based on the wealth of the individual, but must discriminate the given amount of wealth with other factors taken from the very dynamics of wealth (income, production, exchange and consumption) or by personal circumstances of the subject. In Vanoni point of view, everyone taxpayer should pay a fair and contribute to the expenditure amount in reason of their economic capacity. The Study of the Ethical foundation of the tax ratio can not be separated from the analysis of the function of the charge in parallel with the Birth and development of the state organization. The theory of taxation appreciates "the practical effect of redistribution, equality and solidarity according to Articles 2, 3 53 of the Italian Constitution. The theory of taxation can not even leave the analysis of the effects of taxes on the economy: development, investment, consumption, as it is analyzed in the framework of the Science of Finance. The tax law found its historical justification in terms in which state has favoured its economic policy in one of the two traditional strands of liberal thought. The two theories, one classical liberal (more inclined to favor the proprietary rights in the face of public levy), devaluing at the same time the state intervention and regulation of mediation. And conversely, that egalitarian advocate of the "welfare state" substantially rejecting the concept of minimal state, which assesses the tax rules in the distribution function (and redistributive) than property rights. In the first theory, state organization the individual identifies with its property and its assets acquired its own moral legitimacy. State Leviathan (see T. Hobbes ) repudiated considering all forms of unjust "tax benefit" that was not based on the criterion of benefit, or that did not involve remuneration contracts with a view to the enjoyment of the public services offered to the individual (understood as private). At that time, on the other hand, the State had to correct the extreme limit of the state of nature, i.e. to deal with protecting the public safety and private property, it was forbidden that the State having to purchase and manage funds, monitor the private activities, and finally, to manage industrial and commercial activities. Otherwise the rule captures the most important of which tasks is to increase of the volume of expenditure for the maintenance of the bureaucracy organization and the military. It creates the need for the introduction of a taxation system. Taxes will no longer be temporary but will assume the characteristics of stability and ordinariness. The only purpose of taxation now becomes contributory and redistributive. Hovewer the fight against tax evasion and mandate the special privileges continues unabated, as the Italian Scholar Allorio said, “a tax system has to be fair or, otherwise, simply is not”.