[Rezension zu Mario Marsilj Libelli: Per l’imposta progressiva]

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Per l’imposta progressiva (1903)

Schullern’s brief review examines Mario Marsilj Libelli’s defense of progressive taxation against practical objections. He traces its movement from a classification of fixed, proportional, and progressive assessments to a mathematical search for the form best suited to taxation’s nature.

The decisive conceptual move is to rank collective needs below subsistence but above all other private needs:

Von dem Verhältnisse zwischen den privaten Bedürfnissen des einzelnen und seinem Kollektivbedürfnisse, das zwar für ihn weniger wichtig sei, als das nach Existenz, aber wichtiger als alle anderen Bedürfnisse, ausgehend, gelangt er zur These, die Steuer müsse progressiv, die Progression müsse eine kontinuierliche und abnehmende sein; sie müsse überdies ein allerdings auf das knappste bemessenes Existenzminimum freilassen.

English translation: Starting from the relation between the private needs of the individual and his collective need — which, though less important to him than the need for existence, is more important than all other needs — he arrives at the thesis that the tax must be progressive and that the progression must be a continuous and diminishing one; it must moreover leave free a subsistence minimum, albeit one measured most sparingly.

This hierarchy yields continuous but diminishing progression and a narrowly defined subsistence exemption. Mathematical formulation then supplies an assessment rule within those normative limits; the final chapter returns to practical objections.

Im Schlußkapitel werden die vom Standpunkte der Praxis erhobenen Einwendungen gegen das Progressionsprinzip in gedrängter Kürze bekämpft.

English translation: In the concluding chapter the objections raised from the standpoint of practice against the principle of progression are combated with terse brevity.

Schullern recommends the study to those testing the feasibility of a single progressive direct tax, without endorsing all its premises. His closing reservation concerns social policy, particularly the level of exempt subsistence income. The review thus locates the book’s value in connecting principles to implementation while leaving the adequacy of its protection for basic needs open to serious challenge.