The scholar: a brief introduction to Joseph Schumpeter 15
The “sacred decade” 16
Career in the US 17
Legacy 17
The founding text: ‘The Crisis of the Tax State’
The Finanzplan
Definition of the term: Tax State
Introduction of a methodology: or, why is an essay from 1918 still important?
Paretian fiscal sociology
What about Marx?
The Modern Fiscal Sociology
The post-2008 era
Parliament
The New Fiscal Sociology
A next step for the new fiscal sociology
Part II: “What is the nature of the tax state? How did it come about?” (Schumpeter 1918: 100)
Chapter Three: The Fiscal State and Budget Institutions
The UK’s budget history: a fiscal, sociological consideration
Pitt the Younger, and the Old Sinking Fund
Gladstone’s Budget of 1853
The People’s Budget of 1909
Budgeting and executive power in the UK
Local authorities and the Thatcher era
First Lord of the Treasury
Closing
Chapter Four: Budgets: process, rights, and institutions
Process: Twenty-first century legislative initiatives
The Office for Budget Responsibility
Budgets as “transparent”
Budgets as “sustainable”
The EU Context
Comparative Perspective: The United States
Two American ideas: tax expenditures, and fiscal federalism
Tax expenditures
Fiscal federalism
Part III: “What are the social processes which are behind the superficial facts of the budget figures?” (Schumpeter 1918: 100)
Chapter five: The challenge of taking rights seriously in fiscal sociology
Taking rights seriously with Schumpeter
Taking rights seriously in economic institutions
The importance of multi-disciplinarity
Closing
Chapter six: Two examples of taking law seriously in fiscal sociology
1) Capital and tax principles
Introduction to r > g
Tax principles
Tax policy
Principles of taxation in the United Kingdom
Searching for tax principles in policy reviews
The Meade Review
The Mirrlees Review
Personal tax reform 2010-2015
Transnational tax principles?
Law and Development
Closing
2) Gender and tax principles
The New Fiscal Sociology, and gender
Independent taxation
Married Couple’s Allowance, and Child Benefit
Tax credits
New Labour
The Universal Credit
The male breadwinner model
What about (gender) budgeting?
Austerity
1. “Objective and reasonable justification:” introduction to the benefit cap cases
SG
DA
2. Indirect discrimination
Why it matters whether the issue is addressed from the perspective of mothers, or their children
What about: EU equality legislation?
3. Attaching benefits to children
Legitimacy
Workfare, welfare, poor law, and the male breadwinner model
A fiscal, sociological analysis: tax principles and austerity
Closing
Conclusion
Bibliography
Ann Mumford is Professor of Law at King’s College London, UK.
This book discusses the socio-legal tax state and its relationship to development, inequality and the transnational. 'Fiscal Sociology' commenced in 1918 when Joseph A. Schumpeter examined the links between capitalism and taxation, arguing that fiscal pressures on governments led directly to the development of tax collection, and the burgeoning growth of capitalist economies. The identification of taxation as an important component of capitalism has continued to change the way that theoretical sociologists conceptualise tax. This book documents the history of this literature to provide a summary of the topic for scholars seeking a bridge between taxation law and contextual, historical, and anthropological analyses of the development of the state, more generally. Whilst Schumpeter’s insights have been celebrated over the past one hundred years, taxation has slipped from the agenda of many scholarly disciplines, in relation to analyses of poverty, globalisation, and equality. Fiscal Sociology at the Centenary fills this gap. The implications of this literature for taxation law in the United Kingdom, in particular, are considered.