The economic essence of taxes in the development of classics of economic science

Taxes are a category directly related to the genesis of the state. The scale, methods and nature of the mobilization of financial financial resources, the economic essence of taxes are always mediated by the level of development of society and the state created by it.

The concept and essence of taxes, the exact scope of the direction of the work of state financial bodies, limiting their arbitrariness and the dominant position in the dialogue with individuals and legal entities regarding the payment of taxes, A. Smith determined. The establishment of such a framework predetermines the further development of mutual rights and responsibilities between public authorities, in the person of the state, and private interests, represented by citizens.

The above axioms have received further conceptual development from A. Wagner. The researcher complements and, importantly, classifies them. There are nine principles that reveal the essence of taxes and the role of the state in dealing with them, divided into four blocks.

The first group of financial and technological principles include the principles of sufficiency and mobility.

The choice of an appropriate source of taxation and certain types of taxes , taking into account the impact of taxation and its individual types on payers and a general study of the transfer of taxes constitute a set of national economic principles.

The block of principles of justice is universality and uniformity.

Certainty, understandable economic essence of taxes, convenience and cheapness of collection form a single set of principles of tax administration.

In addition to classification, separate financial and political principles are singled out. They act as the most important and essential in the theory under consideration, since the authorities often have to violate the principles of justice in connection with extreme state necessity. Proceeding from this, the financial and political principles should be higher than the economic principles and principles of justice.

Thus, if A. Smith supported the interests of taxpayers, A. Wagner, being an adherent of the theory of collective needs, systematized principles that took into account private and public interests, with the explicit priority of the latter in the person of the state. At the same time, the classification proposed by him is not a single whole structural formation, since the financial and political principles are taken out and considered separately from the main classification, and therefore the economic essence of taxes in it is not sufficiently disclosed.

It is also interesting theoretical attempt to justify the improvement of tax relations by means of the proportionality principle by the researcher V. Petit, who came to the conclusion that the money resources proportionally withdrawn from circulation in the form of taxes can not in any way affect the welfare of taxpayers. In Petit, the economic essence of taxes and its conclusion are revealed as follows: when distributing the accumulated revenues in the state treasury, they will be dispersed properly according to the needs of the latter. In the work of V. Petit, there is an indirect justification of the principle of validity, which he understood as the right of the state to collect any amount of taxes at any time.

Russian thinkers of the XVIII-XIX centuries. In assessing tax relations, the methodology of Western scientific schools was used as a basis. Follower of the teachings of A. Smith on the principles of taxation can be called N.I. Turgenev. Having studied the guiding ideas of taxation, the scientist attached special importance to the principle of equal distribution of the burden of taxes, reasonably believing that they should be distributed among all citizens in accordance with their incomes. Judgments about the principles of certainty, the convenience of paying taxes, reducing the costs of levying taxes are fully similar to the general principles of taxation A. Smith. The consequence of this reasoning is the conclusion: the state of education of each state can be judged by the state of taxes.

It is interesting that this statement, in contrast to European financial thought, affects the moral and ethical side of rational interaction between the state and society in the field of tax relations, emphasizes the importance of legal culture, which is quite relevant in our time.