Document Type

Article

Publication Title

The Yale Law Journal Forum

Volume

128

Publication Date

2018

Keywords

tax cuts; jobs act; congress; legislation; traditional family

Abstract

This Essay exposes the moral messages implicit in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). It argues that the legislation reflects values that were not openly debated or discussed in the legislative process, but are crucial to the distributional effects of the law. The TCJA reduces progressivity and increases deficits because it favors traditional families, prefers capital to labor income, treats people as detached from each other, makes charity the narrow concern of the rich, and privileges the acquisition of assets. Fairness in taxation depends on explicitly identifying social values that produce economic justice and purposely designing the law to achieve fairness.

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