Purposes of Taxation
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 443.
Active Vocabulary
TEXT A: TAXES
| Key terms: tax, taxation, legal tender, welfare, unemployment benefits, tax rate, fiscal policy, transaction, externalities, flat tax, tax loophole, marginal. Other words and expressions:to accept, to recognise, to provide, to carry out functions, protection, enforcement, to fund, to vary, to distribute, to influence, to support, to advocate, to imply, accountability, governance, to complain, to tend, certain, criterion/criteria, efficient, impartial, fair, to argue, dispute, amount, to allow, intelligible, to gain, to withhold, to benefit, to measure, average. Linking words and phrases:on behalf of, in addition (to), while, yet, in order (for smth /smb) to do smth, so that, both ... and, (al)though, first(ly)/second(ly), according to, regardless of smth. |
Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes”. Yet, we as a society have come to accept the inevitability of taxes. Everyone dislikes them, but we recognize their need.
Taxes are any payment on behalf of the individual to the government. Taxes are used to pay for all government services. Without taxes, the government would have no money to operate.
Funds provided by taxation have been used by governments throughout history to carry out many functions. Some of these include the enforcement of law and public order, protection of property, economic infrastructure (roads, legal tender, enforcement of contracts, etc.), public works, social engineering, and the operation of government itself. Governments also use taxes to fund welfare and public services. These services can include education systems, health care systems, pensions for the elderly, unemployment benefits, and public transportation. Energy, water and waste management systems are also common public utilities.
Governments use different kinds of taxes and vary the tax rates. This is done to distribute the tax burden among individuals or classes of the population involved in taxable activities, such as business, or to redistribute resources between individuals or classes in the population. Modern social security systems are intended to support the poor, the disabled, or the retired by taxes on those who are still working. In addition, taxes are applied to influence the macroeconomic performance of the economy (the government's strategy for doing this is called its fiscal policy), or to modify patterns of consumption or employment within an economy by making some classes of transaction more or less attractive.
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