By Pascal Salin
Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2020.
Pp. vii, 213. $115 hardcover.
Although Tax Tyranny was published in the Elgar series New Thinking in Political Economy, it is actually the edited version of L’arbitraire fiscal, Pascal Salin’s highly praised book from 1985. The new version—La tyrannie fiscale—saw the light in France in 2014, and the author recently translated it into English. The result is worth the effort: English-speaking readers will be spared the frustrating debates and mathematical virtuosities that have characterized the recent literature on optimal taxation, learn a great deal about the distortions created by all sorts of taxation, and acquire important insights into how to make taxation less unfair and to restrain the taxman’s all but unlimited greed.
Salin develops his discourse following three main themes. He discusses the legitimacy of taxation, emphasizes its cost, and sheds light on the tax structures currently prevailing in most developed economies. In regard to legitimacy, the author takes an
