Despre proporționalitate și progresivitate în impozitare sau despre „jumulirea gâștei lui Colbert”
On proportionality and progressivity in taxation or on the „plucking of Colbert’s goose”

Summary/Abstract: Progressive taxation prevails in most Western countries. The criticism that can be brought to progressiveness, in a certain approach, is the risk of producing an adverse effect, discouraging work and, implicitly, initiative in the business environment. The more prolific a taxpayer is, the more he „benefits” from an amputation of a substantial part of his income. On the other hand, considering the theory of income redistribution, those who work less receive benefits from the state, more precisely from those taxed with a higher tax rate, given that the state has no „money of its own”. In this way, those who want to work more could choose, justifiably, to „rest”, settling for a lower income that would be subject to a proportionate tax rate. So the rationale for the progressive tax, beyond the theory of equality of sacrifice – the main argument on which this type of tax is based, seems to be that the state aims to „take the money where it is found” or in Colbert’s more plastic expression , progressiveness is the act of „plucking the goose so as to obtain the greatest amount of feathers with the fewest screams”.

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