TRIBUTES. - Taxes (Latin tributum, from tribuo) in the broad sense are the imposts that the State requires of the citizen to cover its own expenses. And in this sense they also include the fees that the State imposes on the individual for a particular service rendered to that same citizen. In a narrower and proper sense, however, taxes are the payments of money that the State exacts from its subjects, without these receiving any particular and immediate counter-performance in return. Since there are two parties interested in this problem, the State and the citizen, its moral aspect is necessarily twofold as well.
I. THE STATE AND TAXES
It is not difficult for historians of financial law to prove that the State has always exercised this right of its own. Its foundation is the very natural necessity of the State's existence, which, having as its proper end the common good (v.) of the citizens, must have the means, including economic and financial ones, to attain it in concrete terms. And if the State cannot obtain these means otherwise, or if the other ways are not sufficient, it follows logically that it also has the right to exact taxes from the citizens.
The famous texts of Revelation: "Reddite Caesari, quae sunt Caesaris" (Lk. 20:26) and "Cui tributum, tributum, cui vectigal, vectigal" (Rom. 13:1-7) positively confirm this natural right. Indeed, the cited texts, even if they refer directly to the citizen, nonetheless implicitly and indirectly confirm the authority of the State to impose them within the limits of justice. Patristics abundantly confirms the legitimacy of this right; so too does scholasticism, headed by St. Thomas, acknowledge its legitimacy on the foundation of the common good. Modern theologians and sociologists, while recognizing that in practice many States abuse this right, nonetheless do not depart from tradition in acknowledging its legitimacy.
Since taxes are then destined for the common good, it follows that it does not seem just to enact fiscal laws that fail to take account of the contributions of activity and of good that citizens already offer for the benefit of society, treating such citizens on the same footing as those who do not give those contributions to the common good. Thus it would be contrary to the justice of taxes to impose burdens on those institutions which are already by their very nature of social purpose. In this way it is held to be contrary to justice in the State to insist, out of a certain social utilitarianism, more heavily on so-called indirect taxes rather than on direct ones. Thirdly, the very use of the taxes collected also falls under moral scrutiny, even if juridically no authority exists outside the State. In today's democratic governments there is control by the parliaments, but only the moral law and conscience can scrupulously control the use of taxes by government officials. In this sense it is evident that it is not lawful to use taxes for merely private utility (cf. St. Thomas, De regim. princ., Parma ed., XVI, p. 294). And even in the very subsidies to the needs of public order funded by taxes, it is morally required that the order of social charity be observed, placing the satisfaction of primary needs (water, sewers, housing) before less pressing ones, and giving priority to the places most in need. To do otherwise contradicts the right order that every justice must observe if it wishes to remain such.
II. CITIZENS AND TAXES
To the State's right to impose taxes there corresponds, correlatively, a duty on the part of citizens. Each person's contribution to the common good is, in fact, primarily an obligation of natural law, insofar as every citizen is also by nature a member of society. Insofar as fiscal laws have a foundation in natural law, they cannot be regarded as purely civil laws, nor even less as purely penal laws. For this reason, authors increasingly incline to hold that, supposing the fiscal law to be just, it necessarily binds also in conscience.
A great number of modern moralists agree in holding that the fiscal obligation is linked to that justice for the common good which was anciently called legal and which many today wish to call, though with the same meaning, social justice (v.). Taxes, in fact, since they have the common good as their formal object, can derive only from that general justice which is concerned with the common good and which is «architectonice in principe» but «executive in subdittis». In this sense, since the person is not determined, one is not obliged to restitution in case of violation (Noldin, Mausbach and many others).
Other moral considerations are customarily made regarding the case of so-called tax frauds; it is worth noting that on this point some of the most modern authors speak also of fraud merely in intention (cf. Scaliteur), with express disapproval by others (cf. Janssen). Moreover, it is not rare that not only those who defend the thesis of strict justice speak, as is obvious, of tax fraud in the strict sense with the obligation of restitution, but also some who admit the obligation of legal justice demand a certain reparation in so-called tax fraud (cf. Mausbach, Saedler).
With regard to the declaration of things subject to taxes, it may be said that, since it is today a necessary condition for a just distribution of the fiscal burdens, it partakes of the same moral nature as the fiscal law, and therefore the explanations of the moralists, with their differing opinions, hold also for the declaration. And the same must be held in principle with regard to the other connected question, whether the citizen is obliged to pay his taxes before being asked to do so by the public official. Indeed, by logical coherence this is denied by those who uphold the opinion of the purely penal law, while it is affirmed by those who admit a prior obligation in conscience, founded on the obligation, already of natural law, to cooperate in the common good. And for this reason fiscal laws, like others, bind from the very beginning of their promulgation, unless the legislator has determined otherwise.
III. TRIBUTES IN PRACTICAL VISION
Finally, it must be recognized that in practice States abuse their right to impose taxes, raising them excessively, without an adequate reason of common good, so that citizens easily become convinced of the scant justice of taxes. From this it arises that citizens give themselves over "tuta conscientia" to violation of the fiscal law. The State, knowing this, easily imposes higher taxes than real needs require, foreseeing that, given the large number of violators, only thus will it be able to collect the necessary sum. For this reason today moralists and sociologists speak insistently of re-educating the State and citizens to their own responsibilities and to mutual trust (cf. Scaliteur, De Marco). On this point various practical means are suggested by moralists and economists. But even in this field not everyone agrees on the practical efficacy, for example, of the oath imposed on the citizen or the publicity of income declarations and of the payment of taxes in official publications.
And from the practical side it may be added that, especially in modern States, with their social welfare provisions and assistance to the needy, the citizen and the Christian, by paying taxes according to possibility and conscience, even if nothing superfluous remains to them on this account, may consider themselves to have satisfied their duty of helping the poor, according to the Lord's precept (v. ELEMOSINA) and to receive the same merits, which are truly great.
The fact, moreover, that in practice one is not obliged, because of the discussions that exist among theologians, to restitution, in the sense that theologians give to this term, does not exclude that in practice one may sin even gravely by violating the fiscal law.
Bibliography4 works
Namur, 17 (1922), pp. 23-24; O. v. Nell-Breuning, Steuervereinheitlichung und Steuergerechtigkeit, in Stimmen der Zeit, 114 (1927-28), p. 298 ff.; id., Steuerverfassung und Steuergewissen, ibid., 118 (1929-30), pp. 254-68; O. Weit, Grundlagen der Steuermoral, in Zeitschr. für d. ges. Staatswissenschaft, 83 (1927), p. 317 ff.; A. Janssen, Le fondement philosoph. du devoir fiscal, in Ephém. theol. Lovam., 2 (1935), pp. 367-89; A. Ostojic, De fondamento et natura obligationis tributorum, Rome 1944; P. Bayart, Le devoir fiscal, in Mél. de sc. relig., 7 (1950), pp. 412-22; C. Scailteur, Le devoir fiscal, Bruges 1950; A. De Marco, Del dovere fiscale oggi in Italia, in Civ. Catt., 1952, 1, pp. 274-89; J. Delspierre, Le devoir de l'impôt devant la conscience chret., in Nouv. rev. théol., 74 (1952), pp. 400-408.
Ermenegildo Lio