Year 10 - Citizenship
Can taxes be avoided?
What has the UK economy got to do with me?
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit develops pupils' knowledge and understanding of the UK economy and helps them appreciate its relevance to them.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to explain how tax avoidance affects the UK economy and why paying tax is everyone's responsibility.
Key Notes
- Taxation funds essential public services, ensuring universal access to healthcare, education and infrastructure.
- Tax avoidance, though legal, reduces government revenue, whereas tax evasion is illegal and punishable by law.
- Taxation upholds social equity by ensuring proportional contributions based on income levels.
- Tax-free economies often rely on high consumption taxes or privatised services, increasing financial barriers to access.
- Without taxation, public services would become market-dependent, exacerbating social and economic inequalities.
Vocabulary To Learn
- tax: the charges imposed by the Government on citizens and corporations to finance some of its spending
- tax avoidance: legal methods of avoiding paying as much tax as possible
- tax evasion: illegal methods of avoiding paying tax, punishable with fines or imprisonment
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- All governments charge their citizens Income Tax.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
Taxation funds essential public services, ensuring universal access to healthcare, education and infrastructure. Tax avoidance, though legal, reduces government revenue, whereas tax evasion is illegal and punishable by law.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'tax'
the charges imposed by the Government on citizens and corporations to finance some of its spending.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: All governments charge their citizens Income Tax. Correction: There are many countries that do not pay Income Tax at all; their governments get their income elsewhere like from VAT or natural resources.
More Lessons In This Unit
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