The present paper was written as early as 1992 on occasion of the first anniversary of adoption of the Statute on income tax which was designed to be collected from natural persons. It was on occasion of discussion referring to the principles of tax law that the present paper recalled the tax-related slogans at one time formulated by Adam Smith. These slogans make up the canon of fiscal theory accepted by the outstanding Polish experts on the problem, inter alia by Fryderyk Skarbek, Stanisław Głąbiński, Adam Krzyżanowski or Henryk Radziszewski. In the context of these slogans the solutions of the Statute of 1991 were subjected to criticism. The problem is that the creators of the Statute, in its detailed solutions, did not show full respect to the principles of justice ad equality that laid the foundations of social order. The analysis of the aforementioned detailed statutory solutions should help the legislator to arrive at the reflection that the fiscal difficulties experienced by the state cannot be mechanically regulated by burdening the poorest in the some way as the rich are burdened.