Abstract: One of the strategically important activities rendered by the state is provision of social welfare to population through direct and indirect influence on the economic system. In today's economically unstable conditions, the role of directed tax policy is growing because taxes regulate the state interference into economics and thus stimulate the volumes of production, technological development, and regulate the demand and supply, volumes of incomes and savings of the population. The subject of the research is the tax instruments of social welfare oriented at improving the well-being of the population which is a very topical issue taking into account the growing polarisation of population with different incomes. The object of the research is the social and economic relations between the state, populatin and economic entities arising in the process of tax collection and execution of social obligations of the state to improve the life quality of the citizens. The methodological basis of the present research involves Russian and foreign researches in the sphere of taxation. In the process of this research the author has used methods of modelling and systematisation. The author analyzes features of differentiation of incomes that prove the growing level of social polarisation and emphasize the need to develop socially oriented tax policy. The author also offers an extended definition of tax instruments oriented at social welfare, defines and presents a scheme of its key elements as well as describes their contents.