Public Utility, Tax Expenditures and the Welfare State

Abstract

Questions of public utility, and the role of private actors in promoting the public interest are intimately linked to changing conceptions of the role of the state in society. Over the past decades, neoliberal ideology and policies have questioned the scale of the welfare state; political, economic and financial crises have further eroded state capacity and social policies. And most European countries have experienced over the past decades a number of reforms questioning in different ways the role of the state, its domains of action, and the division of tasks between public and private actors. Tax policies and fiscal tools are crucial in regard to this question (Reich 2010). Studying fiscal welfare (Morel, Touzet and Zemmour 2016) or the "Hidden Welfare State" (Howard 1993), and more specifically the political debates on the question of public utility recognition and on tax legislations related to the involvement of private fortunes or organizations in social policies, is a way to analyse the transformations of the welfare state (or welfare mix) in western countries. What kind of fiscal tools are promoted as a way to encourage third sector development or private investment in welfare policies? If there is a need of a "public utility recognition" by some authorities to enjoy a tax exemption, what are the conditions and which tax exempt status is granted and how they have evolved during the last decades? How are public authorities involved in these topics?