Most people would agree that horizontal equity is a good thing.

Horizontal equity suggests it is fair for people of equal ability to pay the same amount in taxes.

There may therefore be internal pressures within the administration to secure horizontal equity.

- Horizontal equity: The equal treatment of individuals or groups in the same circumstances.

And as horizontal equity is reduced, he said, more cheating is encouraged.

Horizontal equity means that people with similar incomes and family structures pay similar amounts of tax.

Horizontal equity would rule out racial or sexual discrimination between people whose economic characteristics and performance were literally identical.

Horizontal equity is the identical treatment of identical people.

In the jargon of tax experts, their objective was horizontal equity - similar treatment of income from whatever source.

In public finance horizontal equity is the idea that people with a similar ability to pay taxes should pay the same or similar amounts.

Horizontal equity means providing equal healthcare to those who are the same in a relevant respect (such as having the same 'need').

Buchanan refers to fiscal equity being attained when there is horizontal equity across different states:

But the new bubble does violate the concept of horizontal equity because it phases out personal exemptions at the $275,000 income level, regardless of family size.

That violates a basic tax principle called horizontal equity, the idea that people with similar incomes should pay similar amounts of tax.

"It's an obvious violation of the principle of horizontal equity for two businesses or individuals with similar economic circumstances to pay significantly different tax rates," he said.

Horizontal equity is the equal treatment of equals, and vertical equity the unequal treatment of unequals.

Whether central government chooses to remove this is, however, dependent on value judgements and a decision to attain horizontal equity (Grewal, Buchanan and Matthews 1980).

The principle of user pay supports the idea of horizontal equity, which states that those in similar wealth and income positions should be treated equally by the tax system.

What's more, their returns demonstrate how far American tax policy has veered from two classic philosophical insights about how to finance government: "horizontal equity" and "vertical equity."

It is assumed that income taxation of the family unit should correspond to principles of 'ability to pay', i.e. horizontal equity and the minimization of 'excess burdens'.

The code is also designed to achieve "horizontal equity" - imposing the same tax on married couples with the same total income no matter how the earnings are split between spouses.

Problems with horizontal equity consist of the idea that taxing individuals with the same ability to pay implies that two individuals earning the same income should be taxed equally.

Horizontal equity is the critical concept that motivates Americans to comply with the tax laws, according to John O. Fox, who teaches tax policy at Mount Holyoke College.

In the last chapter we introduced two notions of equity: horizontal equity, or the equal treatment of equals, and vertical equity, the redistribution from the 'haves' to the 'have-nots'.

Horizontal equity is met more nearly by a wealth tax than by a higher income tax rate on unearned income (income from property) or than on income from work.