Jack Mintz: Don't go woke on taxes, Minister Freeland!

financialpost.com:

Imagine if in her Tuesday budget federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced higher taxes on capital gains — except for women, visible minorities and Black, LGBTQ+ and Indigenous Canadians. Most people would be appalled.

But woking up the tax system has many adherents. Just last week, I received emails from editors of two distinguished tax journals — Tax Notes, a leading U.S. publication, and the Canadian Tax Journal, seeking papers on “critical tax theory.”Are ethnically-specific taxes really something we should be considering?

Mainstream tax theory argues the overriding objective of taxation is to raise revenue to cover the cost of public services. There are three main criteria for a “good” tax structure: efficiency, simplicity and equity.

Efficiency means taxes involve minimal distortion of economic activity: they raise revenue without inducing people to change their economic choices for tax reasons.

Tax equity has long been based on the twin notions of “horizontal equity” — people with the same incomes, consumption or wealth should pay the same taxes — and “vertical equity”: those with greater ability to pay should pay more.

Critical tax theory views tax equity differently, however. One of its leading proponents, the University of Pittsburgh’s Anthony Infanti, argues that what’s considered fair in taxation should not just be based on people’s “ability to pay.” Other characteristics such as race, gender, sexual orientation and physical ability should also be taken into account. Because it doesn’t generally do that, Infanti argues that the existing tax system contains “invidious discrimination that already imposes heavy burdens on its victims.” Shades of Marxist tinkering to support the downtrodden worker