There's a moral obligation to look after the less privileged

The argument

The argument proceeds from a claim about what modern civilised societies already believe rather than from a claim about what taxation achieves. In this account there is a shared belief that human beings are entitled to a certain standard of living and to access vital public services irrespective of their income or their background. That entitlement is not earned by contribution and is not withdrawn for failure to contribute; it attaches to the person. Proponents locate this principle at the heart of most liberal democratic societies and derive it from a prior commitment: that the needs of the individual should be superseded by the needs of the community. On this reading a society is not simply an arrangement for the convenience of the people who happen to do well in it. It is a common undertaking whose members are bound to one another, and the claims that undertaking makes on any individual do not stop at the point where that individual's own interests are satisfied. If those two commitments are accepted, the argument holds, the distribution of the cost follows from them rather than being a separate political choice. A guaranteed standard of living has to be paid for by somebody. Asking those with the least means to fund it would defeat the purpose, since it would push down the very people the entitlement exists to protect, and it would leave the shared standard unmet for exactly the group it was designed to reach. The burden therefore falls where it can be borne, and the philosophy advocates that those with the greatest means should pay the highest amount of the cost. The conclusion drawn is that this principle should be reflected in the structure of a modern tax system rather than left to voluntary giving. Charity is discretionary and varies with the disposition of the donor; the entitlement it would have to underwrite is neither. Taxing the wealthy at higher rates is presented as the institutional form the obligation takes once a society decides to honour it consistently.

Premises

Counter-arguments

In most societies the majority of tax is already paid by the wealthiest people, both directly through higher rates of income tax and indirectly through taxes on spending such as Value Added Tax (VAT). In the UK, the wealthiest one per cent account for third of all income tax. Any attempts to increase the tax burden on the wealthiest in society would be viewed as both divisive and unfair.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] The wealthy already pay more in tax.