Rising concerns about income and wealth inequality have prompted renewed attention to questions about the role of the tax system in delivering a fair society. Within the social sciences, researchers from different disciplines have adopted a variety of normative and explanatory frameworks for thinking about ‘tax justice’; however, these perspectives have rarely been connected with one another.
This symposium invites scholars from economics, law, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and political science to explore a wide range of tax justice questions: from the social acceptability of different taxation schemes to what shapes public demand for tax justice and its relation to tackling inequality; from the role of elites in influencing tax policy to pressing challenges in relation to tax evasion, corporate taxation and inheritance tax.
Symposium Agenda
Tuesday 3 May 2022 9:00am - 5:00pm (BST)
9:00am
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Arrival (and coffee for in person participants)
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9:10am – 9:15am
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Opening Remarks
Francisco Ferreira (International Inequalities Institute, LSE)
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9:15am – 10:30am
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Session 1
Frank Cowell (Department of Economics, LSE) – Tax Justice, Inequality and Progressivity
View slide presentation.
Mike Savage (Department of Sociology, LSE), Katharina Hecht (Universität Konstanz), Kate Summers (Department of Methodology, LSE) – Why isn’t there more support for progressive taxation? A sociological contribution to the wider debate
View slide presentation.
Luna Glucksberg (International Inequalities Institute, LSE) - Elites and inequality: plutocratic philanthropy in the UK
View slide presentation.
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10:30am – 11:00am
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Coffee break
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11:00am – 12:15pm
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Session 2
Andrew Summers (LSE Law School) – Is it possible to tax the super-rich?
View slide presentation.
Camille Landais (Department of Economics, LSE) – Can Inheritance Taxation Promote Equality of Opportunity?
View slide presentation.
Mukulika Banerjee (Department of Anthropology, LSE) – Some Speculative Explanations for India’s Inexplicable Tax Gap
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12:15pm – 1:30pm
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Lunch
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1:30pm – 2:45pm
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Session 3
Jonathan Hopkin (Department of Government, LSE) – The politics of Tax Justice in Democracies: Redistribution Beyond Median Voter Theorem
View slide presentation.
Tove Maria Ryding (European Network on Debt and Development – EURODAD) and Alex Voorhoeve (Department of Philosophy, LSE) - Is the New OECD Corporate Tax Deal Fair?
View slide presentation.
Mike Devereux and John Vella (Oxford University) – Issues of Justice in Taxing Corporate Profit
View slide presentation.
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2:45pm – 3:15pm
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Coffee break
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3:15pm – 4:30pm
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Session 4
Daniel Reck (Department of Economics, LSE) and Jeanne Bomare (Paris School of Economics) – Tax Evasion by the Wealthy: Lessons from Recent Research and Emerging Challenges
View slide presentation.
Ravi Kanbur (Cornell University) and Santiago Levy (Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association) – The Social Acceptability of Alternative Tax and Transfer Schemes
View slide presentation.
Nora Lustig and Valentina Martinez Pabon (Tulane University) – Universal Basic Income, Taxes, and the Poor
View slide presentation.
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4:30pm – 5:00pm
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General Discussion and Closing Remarks
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Beveridge 2.0: Redefining the Social Contract is a programme hosted by the LSE School of Public Policy that aims to bring the LSE community together with the intent of exploring important policy questions, fostering dialogue across disciplines and identifying avenues for collaborative cross-disciplinary research.
The School of Public Policy is an international community where ideas and practice meet. Our approach creates professionals with the ability to analyse, understand and resolve the challenges of contemporary governance.
The International Inequalities Institute at LSE brings together experts from many LSE departments and centres to lead cutting-edge research focused on understanding why inequalities are escalating in numerous arenas across the world, and to develop critical tools to address these challenges