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The government in Manila is taking advantage of taxing Tobacco. Franklin M. Drilon, acting chairman of the senate, is trying to make this tax a done deal. He thinks it should be taxed because it is a "sin" product. It would see the government raise 40-45 billion Peso's in tax revenue. Senator Ferdinand R. Marcos is concerned about this and is doing his best to prevent this tax. He knows the affects it could have on the tobacco farmers. There are about 18,000 tobacco farmers who are concerned about this tax. I think this is unfair of the Government. I don't think tobacco is a "sin" good, as it is many peoples alternative to drugs. This tax could put many producers out of jobs seeing as the demand will not be as high, and also this tax could force poor people to go back to cheaper alternatives that are very unhealthy and addictive.

In this period of economic uncertainty around the globe, Britain is proposing a tax similar to other parts of the world, where taxes on the rich are placed. As the article has mentioned, this tax sounds great on paper, but history has proven that the plan needs some amendments. Taxing the rich sounds like a suitable idea for many, but troubles start to arise when the "non wealthy 'rich' people" are affected as well. Due to the rising house prices, even little house would be "considered mansions and whacked with heavy tax increases." Houses that cost 1 million pounds are considered mansions, but it is not uncommon due to the anomalies of the British house taxing system. As a result, a low, yet fair taxing system must be put to place to satisfy both sides of the party.

In this article author talks about excise tax and specificly about excise tax that was imposed in 1898 and survived till nowadays. The purpose of that taxation was to pay for the Spanish-American War. The war was over in 6 months but tax stayed. The amount received from taxation was about $300 billion, and the amount spend on war was $6 billion. This tax is very unfair to customers, "This is a 19th-century tax on a 21st-century technology," says Jim Cicconi, AT&T's general counsel. The original purpose of the tax was to raise revenue for a specific purpose, and to do so in a way that would not be noticed by the average consumer. Today, the purpose is gone, and consumers are definitely feeling the pinch. Businesses and consumers pay the same: 3% of the total. On a $100 phone bill, that works out to $3. On a $10,000 bill - not uncommon for businesses - the tab is about $300. Another important fact pointed in that article is that phones were luxury during XIX century, but now they are almost necessities. Seven federal courts have so far declared the tax to be illegal.

This article clearly shows the way price and taxes changes the demand on tobacco. It gives us a good description of that products. So after that article we can conclude that tobacco is not that price sensitive. And attempts of the government to reduce the number of consumers by increasing taxes did not really work. The conclusion of the article makes it really clear and easy to understand: "From the above discussion it is evident that the price of elasticity of value is an important measure of the changes that will occur when a tax is imposed on tobacco products, this value is important in that it can help in determining the appropriate tax value that should be imposed in order to reduce tobacco consumption. Taxes on the other hand should be fair and depending on the price elasticity value of tobacco products certain groups in the economy may be unfairly taxed whereby poor individuals in the economy may have a greater tax burden than higher income individuals."

This article describes the effect of raising taxes on the people. Tax payed by the rich can be used by the government for man reasons such as implementing new policies, improving public amenities, and to benefit the poor. The article says that raising taxes has two main effects, one that people work less since work is now less rewarding. It also may cause people to feel the need to work longer hours because the might need to make some more money to keep the household running. One important determinant of the effect of tax rates is the relative position compared to other countries. Another is the international mobility. This mobility occurs because people believe that in other countries with lower taxes their pay will be greater and they can live a better life. The greater the mobility, the greater the elasticity of supply with respect to changes in taxes.

A ruling has been passed leaving medial device makers stuck with an excise tax on sales of replacement hips, implantable defibrillators and other FDA-approved devices. This tax is intended to help finance the health law's board expansion of insurance coverage and is expected to raise $20 billion by 2019. The tax, which will commence January 1st 2013, has already affected some manufactures. Few companies will be able to pass all or even a small amount of the tax onto hospitals or distributors, resulting in many companies to begin putting cost-cutting plans in place. It is expected that smaller companies will take the worst hits, small device makers could see earnings per share fall by 10%. Because the tax is on total sales, rather than profits, companies with the smallest margins, such as unprofitable start-ups, will face the deepest impact. The tax looms at a difficult time for the industry, as patients will then delay elective procedures. Unlike other health-care sectors, analysts don't expect device makers to benefit much from the expected flood of newly insured patients because they depend largely on older patients who are already covered by Medicare.

The new health care effective 2013 will introduce an excise tax on all medical devices such as bed pans and stents. Being one of the main states with companies that produce medical devices, Minnesota will take about 25% hit of the newly levied tax. So there have been a lot protests in the state. However others parts of the medical sector such as hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are said to benefit from this tax since more people will have insurance to pay for medical facilities and drugs. The tax is also going to lead to a large of people being fired from the companies. The CEO of Medtronic, a large and prominent company in Minnesota said it will have to 1000 people go in the next year. Smaller companies are likely to be affected even worse by the tax.

This article is about the ongoing European Economic Crisis. A decrease in number of jobs and increase in population has led to higher rates of unemployment than ever before. Due to the high unemployment, lesser people are paying taxes as well. So the tax revenues for the country is falling too. Hence they cannot extricate themselves from the debt either. Two of the worst affected countries are Spain and Greece. However countries like Germany and Austria were not affected that badly. Initially in Germany retails sales went down, but since unemployment didn't increase tax revenue wasn't affected. For example the state of Baden- Württemberg pays 49% of the income for taxes.

Like you said one of the most affected countries is Spain where the situation is really bad and the unemployment is really high. There are a lot of things that contributed to this situation, the people spend more than gain, the banks didn´t work properly, the government didn´t intervened… The reasons that many people don´t pay the taxes is because they don´t have nothing and the inequality in Spain is a big problem now. The standards of live of a lot of persons are bad; there are families that live on the grandfather's pension. The people are angry and blame for everything the government.

This article talks about how the euro crisis is effecting the unemployment level severly. It states that due to the record new high level of unemployment since 1975 at 11.6%, at a rate of 11.7% now, less people are paying there taxes. This causes the governmnet to have less of a budget nad therefore it cant subsidize as many companies as it originally wanted to further increasing the crisis. What the governmnet needs to do in this case in lower the taxes so a larger amount of people can afford it and therefore more people would pay tax increasing the governments budget and therefore increasing subsidies

The British Columbian government has stated in its newest budget a tax increase for incomes over 150,000 dollars and a permanent 1 percent increase for corporate taxes. In the 1990s, the NDP government has implemented a similar tax hike in the hopes of increasing revenue, yet the opposite happened as the rich found ways to evade taxes and even worse found no incentive to work harder. However in 2001, the liberal party slashed taxes and revenue slowly, but surely increased. It is a period of waiting as the new tax increases take effect and to see if past still holds true, or if the future will be brighter.

Hong Kong government has decided to impose 15% excise tax on property in Hong Kong that is bought by foreigners. This is a difficult measure for many foreigners wishing to purchase houses in Hong Kong. Some foreigners that has been around for several years are also not feeling as happy as before. Some clients are also thinking about leaving. The government primary reason is to protect its economy from inflating property resulting from foreign investments, low interest rates, and limited supply of housing in the market. Clearly, this situation is related to the topic of excise tax, or specifically, ad valorem tax- fixed percentage is charged on a particular good. This has led to an increase in price, which leads to a fall in demand from foreign investors that wish to invest in Hong Kong properties. This shows that properties are in fact elastic products, but government is able to impose tax since it does not affect the producers dramatically and it does not affect the majority of the consumers. Only foreign investors are affected. Realtor can still generate sales from local investors.

Danish government aims to reduce corporate tax to 22% by 2016. It also aims to increase international competitiveness by offering tax credits, reducing energy tax and public investments. This amendments is implemented in the hope of stimulating growth and make it more attractive for foreigners to run a business in Denmark. Reducing corporate taxes allow companies to have more capital for investments. This could potentially increase factors of production. This wil give corporate incentives to produce more efficiently. In all, this policy can produce a shift in the supply curve to the right, giving positive supply-side benefits.

Sometimes, i think the taxes are too high for some state like New York and California. You have to pay 40% of your income tax, which is I think it too much. I understand why the government did that, but think about it, 40% is almost half of your income! May be I came from the country that equal just one state of America, but more people. So that's why I don't have to pay tax that much since the division is larger. According to what we've learned, I think the government should put high tax on the bad goods for every states instead of put 40% tax on people's income.

This article talks about an increase in the excise duty on soft drinks which are already subject to a 23pc VAT rate. With this measure the government is trying to reduce the obesity and to increase the revenues of the government. I think that this is a good idea because the problem of obesity is very concerning. Also the costs of treating the obesity are very high (in Spain the government is paying 37 million each for treating the obesity) Many doctors says that the obesity is the epidemic of the XXI century. The fat tax has been introduced in some countries in Europe. The problem is that these taxes are very unpopular because the food is a necessity product. The biggest impact of a tax increase would be felt by the young and lower income groups who are the biggest consumers of soft drinks.

This article might not be as relevant to fiscal policies as the ones from my peers. But I think it is important how the government distributes the money received from the taxes. In the article the author talks about the money that the US government allocates for the aid projects in Afghanistan. Millions tax of dollars were ate up with no results. Those money ended up in the Talibans' hands. It is interesting to read and understand that not always the money received from taxes are effectively used.

Obama suggests US can reduce deficit by closing tax loopholes. Deficit is when expenses exceed income. This will allow the US to fund things for the economy's growth without having to raise tax. Obama also says that he wants a fair and transparent tax system and further health care reforms. He says that since US spends a lot, they need additional revenue and also smart spending reductions. This relates to cash inflow and outflow of the economy. US have been dealing will the excess of outgoing money over the incoming money. This becomes public debt for the national. This could possibly slow the the efficiency of how the government can support different sector of the country, such as the economy.

Benjamin Diokno of Malaya Business Insight believes that taxes on cigarettes, liquor, gambling, and oil should be taxed much more heavily. He believes they should account for one third of all taxes. Price elasticity is about 0.6 for cigarettes and about 0.23 for liquor. I do not agree with Benjamin on this one. Firstly, because I do not believe that drinking or smoking is a sin. Some people have lots of pain and trouble in this world and maybe drinking is the only way for them to experience peace. And what if someone has just come off drugs, so instead uses cigarettes instead of Cocaine. Would you still think its a sin to smoke cigarettes? These should be taxed just as equally as other products. Im interested on your views. Comment and let me know !

This article talks about how the government is trying to Real GDP of the country by lowering the taxes on exporting oil prices. By doing this the governmnet has enevitably increased the Real GDP because siince the oil firms FOP cost less they can now supply more oil, also the price will rise from 42$ per barrel to 70$ per barrel meaning that the oil firms will even make more of a profit. Again since the taxes have decreased it will cause foreign investments in the oil industry of Argentina since they just discovered that Argentina is setting on one of the biggest oil deposits. so overall, the long term aggregate will shift to the right, an increase in the real GDp

Argentina has devised a new system of export taxes on oil shipments that will cut taxes, as the government seeks to encourage investments to revive production. The change means energy companies will receive $70 per barrel of exported oil, up from $42 previously. Argentina controls the price of oil exports in order to guarantee domestic supply. The reform means that the state will only retain the difference between the market prices, meaning increased revenue for oil companies that export crude. The long run aggregate supply is expected to shift the right, an increase in the real GDP.

I think they shouldn't increase the tax on the medical device. because if the medical device have higher price. It would be bad for all people, patient might have to pay more money(even though normally is still expensive), they might buy the low quality medical device to save some money to buy another medical device they have to use as well. If the government want to increase the tax they should increase on wine, beer,cigarette, algohols, and kind of that better than the nessessary things like medical device.

Medical devices encompass an extremely wide range of products, such as surgical gloves, dental instruments, wheelchairs, coronary stents, artificial knees and hips, defibrillators, cardiac pacemakers, irradiation equipment, and advanced imaging technology. The U.S. medical device industry has estimated total sales of $106 billion to $116 billion a year. A few large firms account for the lion's share of this revenue. For example, Johnson and Johnson's worldwide sales of medical devices and diagnostics totaled $26 billion in 2011; the firm had total sales (on both medical devices and other products) of $65 billion, on which it earned profits of nearly $10 billion. Medtronic had $16 billion in sales and profits of $3 billion in its 2011 fiscal year. One trade group has estimated that the ten largest medical device makers will account for 86 percent of the sales of covered medical devices and hence pay 86 percent of the receipts from the excise tax.

this article talks about if we are going to have carbon tax as the increasing of using resource such like fuel by the companies, and the companies made a lot of pollution, it give us a negative externality as a whole. all the people on earth has a bad effect by the pollution, increasing of the carbon is one of the thing companies made, in order to stop companies from keeping producing carbon, let's think about put the carbon tax.

i really like this article as it focuses on the fact of global warming. Also its a new point of view to stop Global warming which could be very effective as they would raise alot of money, to use in the further research of non polutent enegery sources. What they havent realised in this article that Methan has a ration 20:1 to carbon in the field of damage causing global warming and although you dont think there is a lot of methane in the world there is. Every decomposing organic material releases methane and just think about all those decomposing plant matter at the bottom of dams with a huge accumulation of methan waiting to be released.

i really like this article as it focuses on the fact of global warming. Also its a new point of view to stop Global warming which could be very effective as they would raise alot of money, to use in the further research of non polutent enegery sources. What they havent realised in this article that Methan has a ration 20:1 to carbon in the field of damage causing global warming and although you dont think there is a lot of methane in the world there is. Every decomposing organic material releases methane and just think about all those decomposing plant matter at the bottom of dams with a huge accumulation of methan waiting to be released.