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 reading and the lecture are both about imposing high rate of tax on cigarette and similar kind of unhealthy food items. The article presents three theories about the benefits of adding high tax rate on unhealthy food items. The lecturer disputes the claims made in the article. Her position is that, the effectiveness of the policy stated is disputable.
According the reading, carrying out high amount of tax on the tobacco has caused people to decrease its consumption. The article mentions that, imposing similar type of tax on different type of unhealthy food will assist government in decreasing the obesity rate among the consumers. However, this specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. She claims that, increasing the tax amount on tobacco will lead people to buy cheap product in low cost, which will exacerbate the health of the consumer, leading to further more health problems.
Secondly, the author suggests that, taxing people for involving in unhealthy activity will create a extra income for the government. In the article, it is said that, such income can be used to cover up the medical cost, which will shift the burden from normal people to those who are associated with unhealthy behavior. The lecturer however asserts that, imposing such high amount of tax without the consideration of the income is unfair, since; both the people with high income as well as people with the low income have to pay equal amount of tax. On top of that, such action will only create burden for citizen who have low income.
Finally, the author posits that, the taxation will increase the revenue of the country, which can be use in other nation building projects. In contrast, the lecturer stance is that, government will become more depend on such revenue. She notes that, as a result of over dependency on such revenue, it will prevent government from implementing laws to eradicate and remove unhealthy activity totally from the society since, government will be at loss if they lose income source.
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 229, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... high tax rate on unhealthy food items. The lecturer disputes the claims made in th...
^^^
Line 3, column 99, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...lving in unhealthy activity will create a extra income for the government. In the...
^
Line 3, column 479, Rule ID: BOTH_AS_WELL_AS[1]
Message: Probable usage error. Use 'and' after 'both'.
Suggestion: and
...since; both the people with high income as well as people with the low income have to pay ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, however, if, second, secondly, so, well, in contrast, kind of, as a result, as well as, on top of that
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 7.48453608247 147% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 4.92783505155 244% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 3.0 5.05154639175 59% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 3.03092783505 495% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 19.0 32.9175257732 58% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 26.3917525773 193% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 3.85567010309 259% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1686.0 937.175257732 180% => OK
No of words: 336.0 206.0 163% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.01785714286 4.54256449028 110% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.28139028586 3.78020617076 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50237274023 2.54303337028 98% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 127.690721649 132% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.622605031667 80% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 527.4 290.88556701 181% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.41237113402 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 9.13402061856 66% => OK
Article: 10.0 0.824742268041 1212% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 1.0 1.83505154639 54% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 0.463917525773 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 1.44329896907 208% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 12.6804123711 118% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 16.3608247423 134% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 57.2648428115 44.8134815571 128% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.4 76.5299724578 147% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4 16.8248392259 133% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.4 4.34317383033 170% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.29896907216 93% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 2.54639175258 118% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 7.41237113402 13% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 1.49484536082 736% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 3.94845360825 76% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.2483259652 0.216113520407 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0919193424921 0.0766984524023 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0974337888049 0.0603063233224 162% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.16485809146 0.12726935374 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0923853639796 0.0580467560999 159% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 8.37731958763 160% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 70.7449484536 69% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 3.82989690722 81% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 7.45979381443 160% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 8.71597938144 139% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 7.59969072165 109% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 41.2886597938 184% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 8.62886597938 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 8.54432989691 126% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 8.15463917526 147% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 78.6516853933 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 7.0 Out of 9
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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.