The US Fiscal System as an Opportunity Equalizing Device

By Marianne Page, John E. Roemer (08/98, En)


In democracies, at least, it is an axiom that taxation should be fair. What constitutes fairness depends, of course, on one?s theory of fairness or justice. Most Americans subscribe to some version of an equal-opportunity theory of justice. One of us has recently proposed a general conception of what equalizing opportunities requires (Roemer [1998]), and in this paper we apply that conception to the issue of income taxation in the United States.

Last updated: 04/26/07