There are a few things in life that often we dread doing such as summiting our tax return tax refunds. It is of utmost importance to pay taxes. In fact, there are advertisements on television and other media forms which reminds us of our tax obligations. Tax serves various purposes, mainly the four ‘Rs’.
Revenue is one of the main purposes served for by taxes. It is the income gathered by the government from the taxpayers. Taxation makes it possible for the government to raise funding for their public projects including repair of roads, building of hospitals and construction of schools. This collected revenue from taxes also pays for government functions like the judiciary and executive system regulations.
The net income of the government is actually computed by decreasing the amount of expenses from the total revenue collected. Revenue or turnover includes the proceeds coming from income taxes paid for by companies and individuals, sales of services and goods, custom duties, dividends and interests. The approximate income is dependent on the rules laid down by the government and its agencies and based on certain accountancy practices.
Redistribution is the second effect or purpose of taxation. It means allocating or transferring money from the rich sectors of the society to the less endowed members of the same society. In economics, the definition of redistribution is almost similar, income, wealth and property are redistributed to many individuals and citizens of the nation.
The aim of redistribution is to achieve equality in economics. It also aims to create a uniform income among individuals and how much they are supposed to earn. Above all, redistribution also functions as a means to correct and solve the inability of the market economy to compensate an individual worker with a sufficient salary according to the amount of work they put in. In actuality it is no duty of the rich people to actually transfer their money to the poor, it is a rule of morality alone, so the government instead redistributes the wealth collected from taxes to the poor people.
Repricing is the third purpose of taxation. Taxes aims to address the external consequences of the production. To illustrate, tobacco has a higher amount of tax compared to other goods in order to discourage consumers from excessive smoking. We all know the bad effects of smoking to our bodies and health. Taxes and subsidies effectively alter the pricing of goods, thereby changing the rate and quantity of consumed amount of goods.
Goods, when imposed with taxes and considering that any of the variables remain constant, in effect increases the market price or the price paid by the end users. However, the prices which the sellers pay for the goods the merchandise are decreased. The marginal tax is on the other hand imposed on the consumption of goods.
Representation is the fourth purpose of taxes. This simply means that the tax payers ought to be provided with the proper representation of the taxes they pay to the government and should seek their tax agents if there are any queries. The governments owes the public tax payers an accountability. Direct taxation is more likely to account for good governance whereas indirect taxation may have less substantial effects.