1. Ending the Relationship?

An immediate concern that may arise about my proposal is that it would require some people to have their tax revenues directed towards states to whom they should owe no obligation. Does the proposal create obligations in cases where we might think no obligations should apply? What if Tanuja had fled state B with her parents due to oppression, renouncing their citizenship and history with the state in the process? I agree that this would be unacceptable and so I would add to my proposal that refugees do indeed lose all obligations to have their tax revenue diverted to states that have mistreated them.

What should this mean in practice? One option would be to exclude state B from Tanuja’s calculation of relative obligation. This would increase the proportional relationship with her other states. Alternatively, the calculation could be undertaken in the same way as it would be for non-refugees, but the revenue withheld from the offending state. It could instead be provided to a third party, such as the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) or to another international development body. I have a slight preference for the second option here, of redirecting the revenue to another recipient, and will assume this approach when discussing the details later on.

A more practical concern is how such an exemption from duty would be confirmed. State B might claim that they do not mistreat their citizens and the refugees are lying or mistaken; state B did nothing wrong and so their citizens must have left for other reasons. If State C accepts the claim of refugee status and State B denies that this was warranted, then what would an international organization be able to do? This will seemingly force the organization into a political controversy that they would wish to avoid. However, it will be necessary to make decisions, and they will have to be made in as uncontroversial a manner as possible.

This is because there is another concern that would impact on this. This is the possibility that states could abuse a refugee-tax-waiver option given that it might be in their interest to do so. Consider a tax haven which offers to grant refugee status and citizenship to new residents, thus offering them the chance to reduce their taxes and free themselves from any obligation to previous states.¹³ An international organization would after all need to adjudicate on such cases for this reason as well, though this could be a significant undertaking.

They might have a listing system which would be used for this case. Where there is a high likelihood that a member of a particular group from a particular state would be a genuine refugee and that the receiving state would investigate thoroughly, then the exclusion could be granted automatically. In other cases, some investigation might be required.

Moving on from these practical issues, we can consider whether excluding state B would be morally justified. Thinking back to the justification, might a critic insist that Tanuja still benefitted from her schooling in state B? The provision of these benefits triggered the obligation and there is no difference between a refugee and someone who simply chose to emigrate. Both the refugee and the migrant received benefits in the past and so have obligations into the future. I strongly disagree. By driving someone out, a state gives up all claim to reciprocal duty on the part of that individual. Furthermore, political refugees will have a good case that they were in fact harmed by their state, or at least placed at an unacceptable risk of harm which led them to leave. This criticism is undermined because State B failed in its duty to protect (^{Renzo, 2012}).

This leads to a concern that the response on my refugee issue is too blunt a tool. One concern here will be that the refugees may have got benefits from their state before they were forced to leave.¹⁴ How can it be that those benefits are to be ignored once the person has fled? They may still feel some affinities to their past society as well, even if they have had a problem with the government. I have already given my answer to this above, that the failure to protect nullifies such claims, but I would also add that the person in question may have also paid tax to their past state, and I assume that this will not be recovered.¹⁵ A different but related concern regarding refugees is that the situation in their country may change over time. In some cases, a refugee might have had a positive experience in the state before being badly affected as the result of a regime change, causing them to leave. The subsequent removal of that short-lived regime, or the peaceful end to a civil war, may render them safe to return to the state, and nullify the justification for them not to contribute. In this case, I would not advocate that their refugee status would need to be withdrawn, but I do think that there should be scope to reinstate their tax link to that state. Perhaps refugees could be given the option to reinstate this link when they are happy to do so, so that their past state can receive a proportion of their tax funds again.

2. What About Non-Refugees who Renounce their Past State?

The proposal that refugees should have future tax revenues diverted away from their past state points to a further criticism, that everyone should be able to sever ties entirely with their past state. Why should refugees be able to do this but not other emigrants as well? Should the analogy not be with a divorce, where the two parties come to an agreement and then go their separate ways from then on with no further duties?¹⁶ A first response to this is that divorce agreements do sometimes include ongoing maintenance commitments (sometimes called alimony). However, maybe that response focuses too much on the analogy. The point is that someone could be unhappy to contribute to a past state, but will be forced to do so by my proposed scheme.

I do not find this a troubling concern myself. The person involved has benefitted from their past state and they have a past relationship with them. If someone does not want to continue that relationship, they should be free to leave. The important point regarding my proposal is that once the person has left, their relationship with their past state will get diluted as their relationship to the new state increases. This dilution occurs because it is a lifetime calculation, and the past tax payments will still count, while the relative relationship is diminishing. For some it may even be the case that they will not need to supplement their past tax payments, since these historic payments will be sufficient to cover their duty. Nevertheless, many would have some proportion of their subsequent tax revenue diverted from their new to their old state under my proposed scheme. However, as mentioned, the relative obligation to the old state will be reducing as long as they are outside it. This is the choice that someone can make -to cease to continue with the relationship, and the relative relationship calculation will take account of this.

Some may challenge my divorce agreement analogy at this point, since marriages were chosen and we do not choose where we are born and raised. Instead the relationship to our state is forced upon us, at least if we have not chosen to immigrate.¹⁷ This is particularly a challenge to consent-based theories of political obligation, which requires them to switch to tacit or hypothetical consent. It may impact on those who accept the principle of fairness only where benefits have to be “accepted” rather than received; we may not think that children could accept benefits. However, those who believe that political obligations have to be actively accepted in some way may find the argument here lacking. It does not impact upon gratitude or associational duties, so those who accept my argument above on either of these grounds would be unconcerned by this criticism.

One response to those unconvinced by gratitude and associational duties is to invoke tacit consent to the state (or acceptance of benefits). We can be more confident that adults were tacitly consenting to stay somewhere up until the point where they left. After all, international individuals are clearly people who have left their original state, so they had an opportunity to leave and took it.¹⁸ The question still remains regarding children, who might be considered incapable of consent. Some may be troubled by this. However, for the single-state individual they will pay tax during their productive years to cover the cost of the education and pension of their fellow citizens. International citizens would be doing the same thing for their historical states as well as their present one, who -after all- did not bear the cost of educating them.

Criticism 1: Is Time a Suitable Currency?

Changing focus now to the factors included in the calculation, one concern is to query whether time is a suitable currency. One version of this is to challenge the moral relevance of time entirely. Does my proposal mean time must have some special moral status, which should be acknowledged and justified?²⁰ Some may consider such status to be questionable, opaque or incoherent. I have mentioned above that I believe time is an underappreciated and important good, and it is a resource of which people have a limited supply. It is an important resource in its own right and is therefore a suitable currency in general.

Fortunately, I do not think it is necessary to get full agreement on that point. The proposal also builds on the idea that time is also a readily measurable proxy for what generates the obligation to pay tax. It is a reasonable proxy for the benefits received (along with income, which is another factor), for the strength of relationship a person has with various communities, and for the relative costs borne by the state(s) involved. I think that the mix of measures I have proposed generates a sensible proxy, though that does not mean that a better alternative does not exist. Overall, those skeptical of the moral value of time can still count it as a useful proxy.

Criticism 2: What about Differences in what States Offer?

However, this then leads to another criticism, which is that time spent in one state is not equivalent to time spent in another. The net benefits someone received when spending a year in one state (G) will not be identical to the net benefits received by spending a year in another state (H). From the opposite perspective, different residents and citizens will provide them with different benefits and costs while they spend time there.

Thinking about students visiting for education, is there not a contractual relationship here, where students are charged fees?²¹ A visiting student spending a year receiving state-funded education in G is not providing as much benefit to that state as a student who is paying large fees to a local education provider in H. It is likely that the student in G is also getting more from the state than they would have received in state H. On the other hand, perhaps the private education in state H is of much higher quality, which is why people are willing to pay a lot for it.²² Whatever the details, the point is that the costs and benefits involved will certainly vary.

This leads to a worry that time is an inadequate proxy for the educational costs and benefits. This could challenge the need for my proposed education time category. I would not rule this out, as the categories I have proposed are suggestions. However, the main reason for including education separately is to counter the focus on income, since time spent in education will not be represented by present income but rather future income. States that educate people who go on to live elsewhere are providing a service to the world.

Moving away from education specifically, the general issue is that some states provide residents with fewer benefits and greater costs compared to others.²³ State G may also provide its citizens with many high-quality public goods and services, which State H does not. Does this sever the link with time such that another measure should be used? I do not think so. The purpose is to determine the relative relationship for each individual after all. This is the relationship that this person has to a particular state, whether or not they would have got more or less from being in another state. However, if a superior currency for this role can be developed and applied then I would happily support that development.

Criticism 3: Should Citizenship be Included in such a Calculation?

A third criticism is that I have not provided any justification to include citizenship within the calculation. If the core of the claim to a share of tax revenue arises because of the benefits that a person receives, and that time is a good proxy for a lot of those benefits, then why not focus solely on time spent (perhaps above some threshold) and ignore other factors such as citizenship, education provision and income.

In response, I would emphasize that citizenship is indeed a benefit that individuals receive, and it is one that they continue to receive even when they live abroad. A citizen living abroad may rarely make use of their citizenship. However, it could be seen to act like an insurance policy -the person’s state stands ready to support and welcome them back should the need arise. People purchase insurance in the hope that they will never need it. However, they nevertheless benefit from the insurance. Similarly, people benefit from their citizenship while they hold it, whether they end up receiving direct benefits or not.

Looking at it the other way around, if citizenship is indeed a benefit then shouldn’t states acknowledge that their non-citizen residents receive this benefit from another state rather than them?

Criticism 4: What about Retirees?

A further criticism raised has been that retirees move across countries too, but may no longer be earning income and paying tax. Are they therefore to be excluded from this system? Should the calculation cease once people reach a certain age? My immediate response is that I see no reason why retirees should not be counted as having an ongoing relationship with their new state, one that will grow over time. This should not significantly affect their total tax liability, but it will affect how the revenues are split between countries.

Perhaps this will require an effective transfer of resources from their past to their current state. However, this might be appropriate if the new state incurs costs from their presence. Migrant pensioners will be using the local infrastructure including healthcare provision after all. One difficulty may be about where to attribute any private pension payments that are received. Should these be attributed to the location of the origin of the funds (the past state) or the place where they are received (their new state)? The response here might depend on other rules about taxing pensions and retirees. Furthermore, if the pension is based on post-tax savings then perhaps there is no need to count this as income within the international tax calculation at all.

Criticism 5: What about the Global Justice Implications?

A final set of criticisms relate to the wider issue of global justice. Some cosmopolitans may find this proposal inadequate in various ways. As mentioned above, some might advocate for a global state, to replace the numerous sovereign states currently in place (^{Cabrera, 2006}). My argument in response would be to point out the downsides and dangers of having a single state, a point noted by Kant and many others (^{Kant, 1991}; Rise, 2015). Furthermore, my proposal could be seen as a more modest one, to have a fairer distribution within the current system, which does not stop people advocating for an alternative global political system. My argument is that within the current institutional set-up, people’s duties to their past states are going unfulfilled. If there were radically different institutions, our duties would no doubt be different.²⁴ Some would argue on cosmopolitan grounds for a global tax scheme that would redistribute from the wealthy to the less wealthy in a systematic manner.²⁵ In one way, my proposal here may be considered to render a formal global redistributive system unnecessary since it will largely redistribute from richer to poorer states. However, it would not have the same redistributive impact as such a global system -states with a large diaspora (perhaps such as the Philippines) will benefit much more from my international tax proposal compared to a global redistributive system. My proposal may not be as effective at solving global poverty.

In response, I would emphasize that while the scheme I propose here would be an alternative to a global redistributive tax scheme, it need not remove all other commitments of aid and support. Nor would it remove existing duties to support states through aid.²⁶ It should therefore be considered complementary to these commitments.

A related concern is whether the remittances that people voluntarily make to relatives in their home countries are already doing the job I set out here, or perhaps complicates the picture.²⁷ The world bank has recorded annual global remittance figures in the region of $540bn in recent years, comparable to the total GNI of Sweden. My initial response is that these remittances are economically important, and they might make the world a less unjust place. There are also various charitable payments which occur across borders. However, they are usually private transfers, not payments to states, albeit they may improve living standards and increase the tax revenue of the receiving states. I would therefore treat such remittance transfers, along with private and governmental aid, and trade, as outside the scope of the calculation I have proposed.

What if some remittances are currently undertaken by people to discharge the a duty of the kind I have invoked here? In that case, I think that my proposal would improve the situation. Such international taxpayers would no longer have to discharge their duty from their net income (their disposable income), it would be done from their gross income, reducing the revenue received by their state of residence (in most cases at least). As a reminder, the aim of the proposal is primarily to redirect tax revenues from states in which income is earned and spent towards states which raise and educate workers. The impact on the lives of international citizens should be minimal.²⁸ It is possible that some migrants may reduce the value of remittances, or private aid, that they provide if the system I propose were in place.²⁹ As I have mentioned, any other duties regarding global justice would remain in place, even if the system I propose were enacted. My main argument here is that it is unfair that the single-state individual (Jay) has his duties discharged through his tax revenue, while the international individual (Tanuja) does not. If Tanuja does decide to provide resources to her past state, and perhaps her family as well, she is thereby much worse off than Jay. In addition to this equity argument, there is also the practical argument that a compulsory and organized scheme will be more coordinated than the disaggregated acts of private charity. My overall argument, then, is that it is better to discharge duties through an official scheme than rely on individuals to do this themselves at the cost of their own disposable income. Migrants may or may not provide remittances or donations at the same level as they would without my proposed scheme, but that would be their choice.

Finally, building on the points made in this section, I will admit that the proposal here provides little detail about the types of regimes and states involved. The world is not so simple that there are just two types of regime in the world; good and bad. The picture painted above might imply that there are outlaw regimes that mistreat their citizens, produce refugees, and fail to honor international standards, and that all other regimes are legitimate, just, and supportive of fair and effective global institutions. The “good” states should band together to allow the “bad” states to become good ones, and the scheme here would simply provide transfers between the “good” states. In reality, most states are limited or compromised in one way or another, and there are significant variations between them.

I have assumed that there could be a global bureaucracy, perhaps related to the United Nations, to administer the international tax collection and transfers that I propose. I imagine that the majority of states should be able to participate in this scheme. For the most part it would involve exchanges of information and money, and most of the resources would come from wealthier nations, who would also therefore primarily support the bureaucracy involved. Outlaw regimes might be excluded entirely from the benefits, though the revenues within this calculation should still be collected and then spent to support the victims of those regimes rather than the perpetrators. Many states will be in more of a grey area in this regard. They might well qualify for inclusion my proposed redistributive system despite not treating their citizens entirely justly. One hope will be that the revenues provided to the government will help strengthen demands within those states that revenues be well spent (^{Collier, 2007}; ^{Moss, Pettersson & Van de Walle, 2006, pp. 8-18}).