Revue - Revue française de finances publiques n°163/2023 - 87

" Getting my tax money's worth " : the call to citizen-customers
81
What's more, on closer observation, it becomes clear that the
traditional tax landscape has been thrown out of balance in all its
dimensions by the changes in its environment, shaken by globalisation,
the digital revolution, and growing social inequalities as well as the
various shocks that followed and have accumulated over the past fifty
years.
In this context, a lack of understanding is building with respect to
all institutions, particularly fiscal institutions, revealing a profound
social malaise. The origin of this malaise lies in a transition now taking
place between the post-World War II social model and another still
unclear and unstable model, the result of globalisation born and bred
by economic liberalism and the widespread application of algorithms,
thus calling into question many traditional professions. The result, over
a protracted period of more than forty years, is the deconstruction of
the State and a metamorphosis of the whole of society, causing part of
the population to be pushed aside.
We thus come to the heart of the question of consent to taxation: it
lies in the inadequacy of a model designed for a world -- of the 19th
and
20th
centuries -- which has less and less in common with that of today.
It is through the image of a unified Nation-State, with defined borders,
that a shared fiscal symbolism was developed, that of a necessary
contribution to the proper organisation of collective life. It could well
be, though, that this symbolism and the legitimacy it confers on the
State is now nothing more than an illusion and a distant memory. In
addition to the difficulties they encounter, citizens do not understand a
tax system that is not in step with the society in which they live. Why
would they consent to it then?
The contemporaneous shifting patterns in public financial systems and
public financial culture are throwing the metamorphoses experienced
by tax systems into sharp relief. New regulations have gradually been
instituted over the past forty years. They set out the question as to the
transformations of democracy and even more so, the future of politics
and the place of the citizen/taxpayer in the incipient new world.
In other words, the time has come to question the relevance of our
compulsory levies. It has clearly become urgent that they be given
forms and a meaning that are attuned to today's society, with the central
point being a definition of fiscal justice. This is an imperative: the
members of a society cannot be or conceive of themselves as sharing in
solidarity unless they are convinced that justice is an effective reality,
and first and foremost, fiscal justice. A far-reaching reflection needs
to be initiated as to what, at the very least, fair sharing of sacrifices
RFFP n° 163 - Septembre 2023
Revue - Revue française de finances publiques n°163/2023

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