The thing is that it's both. In more appropriately neutral language we would say that any tax creates incentives and disincentives, and as a society we should be very mindful of what incentives and disincentives we are creating.

I would actually argue the government has a pretty bad track record when it comes to creating good incentives and "good" disincentives, so usually a better approach would be to try hard and avoid creating incentives or disincentives at all. Proponents of things like VAT, or other very broad, general, and hard to avoid taxes usually see it in those terms.