Welcome to the New Tax Site Experience! Articles | Taxes

By: Guy Starbuck

Welcome to our new tax site.  We encourage you to visit often.  We will be providing updated articles on a regular basis to keep you educated and informed on taxes in general as well as provide tax tips. 

In general, a tax is a charge or levy imposed on a person or corporation by a state.  Taxes are levied financially and performed by a government agency, such as the United States'  Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), or UK's Her Magesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) office.

The funds collected by taxes are used by state and other government offices for many different functions, such as defense, public utilities & services, waste management, unemployment, energy, water, public transportation, health care, education, welfare, as well as traffic infrastructure.

Taxation generally falls into four R categories: Revenue, Representation, Redistribution, & Repricing.

Revenue This is the main purpose of tax - to raise money.

Representation refers to the accountability of taxes, resulting from history, such as the American revolutionary statement of "no taxation without representation". 

Redistribution is as it sounds - the transfer of funds from richer to poorer areas.  This is one of the more controversial aspects of taxes.

Repricing is a tax applied to items like tobacco to discourage its usage.

Sometimes taxes are direct, other times they are indirect.  In economics, direct taxes are referring to those collected by companies or individuals, for instance the case of income tax.  Indirect taxes are taken from people other than the person who is directly responsible.  For instance, a tax on selling a property is considered an indirect tax, where a tax on owning the property is a direct tax.

A critical part of tax systems is the method calculated and percentage of the burden in relation to income or consumption.  The terms proportional, progressive, and regressive describe the way that rates progress from low to high, high to low, or proportionally.  

Please continue to return to our site to learn more about taxes.  We already have several articles to learn from and welcome your comments and suggestions on others.