Many social security institutions are in the process of reforming their disability benefit programmes in an effort to reduce historically high numbers of beneficiaries on the rolls.

This brief considers the concept of tax justice or fairness in relation to each of these broad goals: the collection of revenues to finance public expenditures, the regulation of social and economic behaviour, and the distribution of economic resources. 

Inheritance taxes have rarely ever contributed more than two per cent to the budget of any modern state. Nevertheless, in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries some of the most vocal conflicts over taxation took place over inheritance taxes. This holds true for the United States as well as for many European countries.

A traditional view of tax that viewed consumption taxes as a way to avoid taxing savings is flawed. A progressive spending tax stands between an income tax, which double-taxes all savings, and a wage tax, which ignores all savings. 

This report and series of policy briefs emanate from a workshop held in Oxford in October 2009, in which political scientists and legal experts examine the impact of recent hard times on the social contract.

Global inequality has risen in recent years, even in circumstances where aggregate growth rates have risen.

‘Loyalty benefits’ are transfer payments designed to motivate or reward citizens for serving the state, either tangibly or symbolically. Classic examples are benefits to soldiers and civil servants, and today, special benefits granted to political refugees.