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 and the lecture both deal with consequences of high taxes on behaviors. Whilst the author claims that the high taxes can benefits people in three possible ways, the lecturer contradicts his arguments respectively.
First, according to the reading passage, high taxes helps people quit unhealthy behaviors, including smoking and eating unhealthy food. In contrast, the speaker disagrees this viewpoint. She argues that with the high taxes, people will turn to cheaper cigarettes with lower qualities which are more harmful. Furthermore, she adds that with higher taxes people will spend more money on unhealthy food, consequently they have less money left for healthy food.
Second, the writer states that high taxes on cigarettes and unhealthy food are more financially fair. On the other hand, the professor is doubtful that this is inaccurate. She points out that lower income people who engage in unhealthy behavior will suffer more from the high taxes than higher income ones.
Last but not least, the author posits that high taxes increase revenue for the government by providing more money on public services. However, the lecturer believes that there are flaws in this argument. She asserts that if government relies on the taxes for revenue, it will prohibit the government from enacting laws to ban smoke in public places.
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, first, furthermore, however, if, second, so, in contrast, on the other hand
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: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 7.30242825607 55% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 12.0772626932 91% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 22.412803532 85% => OK
Preposition: 23.0 30.3222958057 76% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1139.0 1373.03311258 83% => OK
No of words: 214.0 270.72406181 79% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.32242990654 5.08290768461 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.82475343497 4.04702891845 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.47965342488 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 123.0 145.348785872 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.57476635514 0.540411800872 106% => OK
syllable_count: 335.7 419.366225166 80% => 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: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 33.2944564955 49.2860985944 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 94.9166666667 110.228320801 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.8333333333 21.698381199 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.83333333333 7.06452816374 111% => 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 : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.310035329734 0.272083759551 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.118135997428 0.0996497079465 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0905408211174 0.0662205650399 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.195869500918 0.162205337803 121% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0599915360731 0.0443174109184 135% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 13.3589403974 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 53.8541721854 101% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.28 12.2367328918 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.46 8.42419426049 100% => OK
difficult_words: 54.0 63.6247240618 85% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 71.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 21.5 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.