Introduction

The previous chapters have successively considered institutional aspects (chapter 1), positive aspects (chapter 2), and normative aspects of taxation (chapters 3 and 4). Throughout the analysis, the task of implementing fiscal systems is supposed to be accomplished by some central body. The nature of this central body has remained deliberately vague, a fact that is reflected in a hesitant terminology: central fiscal authorities, state, government, planner. Indeed the role of this central body is not necessarily the same across the chapters. It is (implicitly) in charge of implementing the different tax systems which are compared in the positive analysis of taxation of chapter 2. In chapter 1, the central body faces informational constraints that are inherent to the problem and that impose restrictions on its taxation power. The situation is somewhat different in chapter 3, particularly when the emphasis is switched from the Pareto criterion to a social welfare criterion. Endowed with such a social welfare function, the central authorities are no longer a passive coordinating body, but an active institution selecting taxation schemes through discriminatory criteria. This latter assumption raises the question of the nature of the social welfare criteria chosen for the selection of taxation schemes or, equivalently, of the nature of the central body which uses such criteria.