The Coming(?) Inflation and the Income Tax: Lessons from the Past, Lessons for the Future

Abstract

The concerns about inflation as a result of the current financial crisis and the U.S. budget deficit challenge the social order, including taxation. Based on the historical U.S. experience and discourse on taxes and inflation, the article focuses on the relationships between adjusting the tax system for inflation and the general attitude towards adjustment for inflation in the social order. The article offers a new insight which is very different from the current discourse. It takes the approach that adjustment for inflation is a cultural phenomenon and not a technical issue. Therefore, tax regimes should be analyzed and critiqued on the basis of an integrative-cultural approach which is reflected in the social order, rather than an isolated phenomenon not playing a major role in the non-tax social order.

Keywords: tax, inflation, tax System