Wealth tax: Let's judge it by principles of taxation

Tax canons laid down by Adam Smith remain relevant, though his list has been extended. Test the idea of a wealth tax against these, lest we get carried away by progressive idealism

- 

The trouble with taxation is not its inevitability, nor its comparison for that reason with mortality, but its susceptibility to being viewed through lenses tinted by the viewer's own tax liability. Evidence of this rises and falls in waves, peaking around budget time. For a steady view of the broad idea, one must turn to first principles. These were set out by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776) as "canons of taxation." They still serve as a good test for tax ideas.