Comments on John B. Shoven and John Whalley's, 'Irving Fisher's Spendings (Consumption) Tax in Retrospect'

摘要

It is useful to start my review of the Shoven-Whalley paper with a quote from Irving Fisher himself: All students of the problem are fully agreed on at least one point—namely, that existing income taxes must be radically reformed. But some of the reformers would include all capital-increases, -while others would exclude them all. There are arguments on both sides, but both agree that either system would be an improvement over the present system or lack of system. (Fisher 1939) This could well be the statement of a serious observer today, rather than of Irving Fisher six decades ago. Fisher favored a tax on "net paid income"—income distributed and consumed—because he thought it fairer and not subject to the income measurement problems of the other pure alternative, based on the Schanz-Haig-Simons accretion concept of income.