Stability and its significance in UK tax policy and legislation
本文探讨了英国政府当前税收政策中“稳定性”概念的特殊含义，追溯其17-18世纪哲学根源，并指出其与凯恩斯主义及不平等问题的矛盾，对理解英国税改方向有参考价值。
A particular conception of stability is developing in UK. It has implications for HM Government’s approach to policy and legislation over next five years. It is therefore important to consider how this conception might differ from apparently similar values promulgated by other recent administrations. This stability is grounded in 17th and 18th century notions of private property, as articulated by John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith, and has affinities with Friedrich von Hayek and with 20th century German ordoliberalism. These, as has been said, are origins of ideas such as proposed tax lock commitment and updated Charter for Budget Responsibility. They have already been criticised for their explicit rejection of 20th century Keynesian ideas for stimulating economic growth. Tax stability provides justification for shrinking state and enhancing property rights, promoting private investment, underscoring the rule of law, and facilitating public spending cuts. None of these aims addresses widespread concerns about particular form of inequality that seems to have resurfaced in recent decades. Significantly, stability also implies, with regard to taxpayer, a private sphere of property rights and, with that, a relatively restrained approach to avoidance, and its rigid separation from evasion. This last seems politically impossible, given inequality concerns referred to above, and that fact alone may well undermine vision of stability that HM Government is striving to promote. To criticise 2015 Summer Budget for lacking a policy narrative or sense of direction, whilst astute and understandable, is to overlook significance of these ideas about stability.