Ex.17. Read and discuss the following facts about taxes

DISCUSSION POINTS

Ex.15. Working in pairs, prepare a report giving arguments both for and against taxation and government spending (100-150 words).

Ex.14. Write a brief summary (25-30 sentences) of Text A.

Ex.13. Write a plan for a summary of Text A. Start with

WRITING

Ex.11. Answer the following questions.

1. What are taxes?

2. What functions of the government are paid from taxes?

3. What public services does the government provide?

4. What is fiscal policy?

5. What are four R’s of taxation?

6. What does the slogan “no taxation without representation” mean?

7. Name criteria of a “good tax”.

8. Why do people argue over the level of the equity of taxes?

9. What is a flat tax?

10. How does the income tax meet the criterion of efficiency?

11. What principles is taxation based on?

12. What is the difference between progressive, regressive and proportional taxes?

Ex.12. Make a presentation of the topic “Taxes”.

4. The importance of taxation in the economy.

5. ___________________________________

6. ___________________________________

Ex.16. Read the following statements concerning taxation and government spending. Which do you agree with?

1. The redistributive purpose of taxation is, quite simply, theft.

2. Taxes take away people’s hard-earned private property, and so should be kept as low as possible.

3. Society creates the conditions under which financial success is possible, and therefore, it has a rightful claim to a share of that success in the form of taxes.

4. Progressive taxes may discourage people from working extra hours.

· The Gettysburg address* is 269 words, the Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words, and the Holy Bible is only 773,000 words. However, the tax law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913 to over 7 million words today.

· There are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions.

· The IRS** sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth.

· American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours of their time to comply with the federal tax laws each year. That’s more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.

· The IRS employs 114,000 people; that’s twice as many as the CIA and five times more than the FBI.

· 60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.

· Taxes eat up 38.2% of the average family's income; that's more than for food, clothing and shelter combined.

*The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the most well-known speeches in United States history. It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

**The IRS - The Internal Revenue Service – Податкове Управління США

TEXT B: TAXATION IN THE UK

Дата добавления: 2014-11-29