Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
This paper analyzes optimal tax policy from the perspective of voters who want public policies to systematically advance their interests. Self‐acknowledged ignorance implies that voters have a practical interest in transparent and stable tax systems that allow personal tax burdens to be calculated accurately and easily. Such properties reduce voter mistakes. However, a voter's normative interests may conflict with these practical interests, because ideas about a good life or good society often support tax system complexity. Tradeoffs between these two aims of democratic tax systems imply that the optimal tax system for a democracy neither minimizes voter errors nor maximizes a social welfare function.