Approaches to the Definition of Tax Sources in Historic Retrospective

Tax evolution and its transformation into the main source of state revenues have set tasks to look into their nature including their sources and principles. The works of W. Petty, A. Smith. A. Wagner, N. Turgenev, and others are studied from this point of view. Financial science has developed two approaches used by modern science. The issues of tax burden distribution in economy are considered according to both the principle of benefits and solvency conception. The solvency conception development based regarding the taxpayer's status was connected with the issue of a tax source. Solvency conception became possible when the net profit was recognized by the financial science as the subject of taxation. The main issue was on which principle - proportional or progressive - the taxation must be based. The discussion was over in the late XIX - early XX centuries when progressive taxation was implied almost everywhere. At the same time the process of tax shifting was acquiring its importance. The evolution of the shifting theories manifested that the ratio between political and economic foundations has changed in the favor of the latter in the course of acquiring scientific potential

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