Many countries require cigarette smokers to pay particularly high taxes on their purchases of cigarettes; similar taxes are being considered for unhealthy foods. The policy of imposing high taxes on cigarettes and other unhealthy products has a number of social benefits.
First of all, the taxes discourage people from indulging in unhealthy behaviors. Raising taxes on cigarettes, for instance, leads people to buy fewer of them. Smoking has declined as taxes on tobacco have risen, showing that these taxes do work to make society healthier. It can be expected that imposing similar taxes on unhealthy food and beverages would help reduce obesity rates.
Second, taxes of this kind are financially fair. When people get sick as a result of their smoking or eating unhealthy foods, they create medical costs. It is unfair that everyone in the society—including nonsmokers and people who follow a healthy diet—should contribute equally to covering these costs. Taxing people who engage in unhealthy behaviors creates extra income that can be used to cover the medical costs. In this way, some of the financial burden is shifted from all of society to just those who choose to participate in the unhealthy activities.
Finally, the high rate of taxation on cigarettes significantly increases revenue for the government. In addition to using this tax revenue on medical assistance, governments often use the revenue for other projects that benefit public welfare, such as building stadiums or creating public parks. Even basic government-supported services like public education benefit from these taxes. Thus, the taxes on cigarettes—and the proposed taxes on unhealthy foods—benefit everyone.
The article states three social benefits that the policy of imposing high taxes on cigarettes and other unhealthy products has. However, the lecturer challenges these ideas for the following reasons.
First of all, the author of the article suggests that the taxes can discourage people from indulging in unhealthy behaviors because they need to pay more taxes if they buy more of those unhealthy products. However, the lecturer disagree with the idea. She thinks that the high taxes will make those smokers buy cheaper and lower quality cigarettes, but, unfortunately, those kinds of cigarettes contains even more harmful ingredients. As a result, they may be more indulged in those cigarettes and fail to quit smoking.
Second, the author of the article believes that the taxes for smoking and other unhealthy products are financially fair, because they can be used to cover the medical costs created by people get sick as a result of their smoking or unhealthy foods. Nevertheless, the lecturer disputes the opinion. She says that the taxes are actually unfair because there are high earning people and low earning people engaging in the unhealthy behaviors, and low earning people buying those cigarettes will not have enough money for their living. Therefore, the financial burden actually increases.
Finally, the article indicates that the high rate of taxation on cigarettes significantly increase revenue for the government, and the governments can use the money to build stadiums or creating public parks. Unfortunately, the lecturer questions the idea. She thinks that the high income from the taxation on cigarettes will make the government avoid making laws to prohibit smoking in public areas or in the parks, because the government does not want to lose the income. Hence, the high rate of the taxation may not benefit the society.
- Scientists are considering the possibility of sending humans to Mars in the coming decades Although there have been successful manned missions to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s Mars is 150 times further away from Earth than the Moon is Thus the project o 3
- Scientists are considering the possibility of sending humans to Mars in the coming decades Although there have been successful manned missions to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s Mars is 150 times further away from Earth than the Moon is Thus the project o 3
- The Salton Sea in California is actually a salty inland lake The level of salt in the lake s water what scientists call its salinity has been increasing steadily for years because the lake s water is evaporating faster than it is being replaced by rainfal 85
- Scientists are considering the possibility of sending humans to Mars in the coming decades Although there have been successful manned missions to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s Mars is 150 times further away from Earth than the Moon is Thus the project o 3
- Asteroids are large space objects made of rock and ice There are hundreds of thousands of asteroids in our solar system Though we often hear ideas about establishing colonies of humans to live and work on our Moon or our neighboring planet Mars some think 3
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, nevertheless, second, so, therefore, as for, as a result, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 5.0 10.4613686534 48% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 5.04856512141 178% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 7.30242825607 137% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 12.0772626932 58% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 22.412803532 98% => OK
Preposition: 27.0 30.3222958057 89% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1560.0 1373.03311258 114% => OK
No of words: 296.0 270.72406181 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.27027027027 5.08290768461 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.14784890444 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6267712032 2.5805825403 102% => OK
Unique words: 146.0 145.348785872 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.493243243243 0.540411800872 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 484.2 419.366225166 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 1.25165562914 240% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 2.5761589404 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 21.2450331126 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.1107075865 49.2860985944 156% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.428571429 110.228320801 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1428571429 21.698381199 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.0 7.06452816374 127% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 4.45695364238 269% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.27373068433 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.342549596332 0.272083759551 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.105968699819 0.0996497079465 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.108107840157 0.0662205650399 163% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.226760362958 0.162205337803 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0747141651358 0.0443174109184 169% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 13.3589403974 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 53.8541721854 93% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.2367328918 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.47 8.42419426049 101% => OK
difficult_words: 71.0 63.6247240618 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 10.498013245 99% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.2008830022 125% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.