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Today's
topic is one that we all have an opinion about - it's taxes. Now let me first say that this video will
not cover every type of tax that is used in our nation, I am simply going to talk about the main
ones and with that said let's go ahead and begin. Before we go any further let's take a little quiz.
How many taxes can you name in 10 seconds? Are you ready? Go! Well, I hope you did well
and that you named several types of taxes. It's okay, if you didn't, because that's kind of why
we're here today. So, the topics for this lesson, as I mentioned we're going to talk about some of
the taxes that we have in the United States. To be specific, we're going to talk about six of them,
they include the following: income tax, sales tax, payroll tax, property tax, sin tax and finally,
license and occupational taxes. With all that said we can move on to our first topic.
In our first section we're going to briefly define the word tax. This is important for us to
know before we ever get into examining the different types of taxes, that we're gonna look at in
this lesson. A tax is a charge that's levied on the people by the government. In other words, it's a
specific fee that the government collects depending upon the type of activity they are taxing. Our
goal today is to figure out what the government taxes, so that you aren't surprised when you go to
make your next purchase.
Now with that said, we can move on to topic number two. In this section we're going to
discuss the purpose of taxes, in other words, why we have them in our economic system. We
need to know this before we talk about the types of taxes used by our government.
The first reason we have taxes is to pay for government services, you see, a government
has to collect money before it can actually pay it out. It cannot simply print money for itself or it
would ruin the value of our currency. Some of the services our government provides includes:
national parks, building highways, roads, bridges, dams and other infrastructure, paying for the
military and other Secret Service agencies, or the FBI, the CIA and even local police forces, and
who could forget schools. These are all essential pieces of our country's well-being. The
government collects taxes so that these are funded.
Now this is not the only reason that they put taxes on things. The government also
collects taxes as a way of changing people's behavior. It might sound strange, but there are
certain activities that the government tries to encourage or discourage. For example, the
government tries to discourage the use of alcohol by taxing it, and they do the same with tobacco
products. However, they use taxes as a way to encourage people to buy their own home. We'll
get more into detail about what these exactly are and how they fit in, but for now, let's move on
to our lacks, our last reason for taxation.
The last one is usually the most controversial and that's wealth redistribution. This is
moving money from one person to another, or in some cases, from one time period of a person's
life to another. Some examples of this include: food stamps where government provides food
assistance for those who need it. It also provides health and welfare programs, in California we
have whip or women infant children. Another one and perhaps the oddest of all is the transfer of
wealth from one point of your life to another, as is the case with Social Security. In all of these
instances, the government collects money and redistributes it in some fashion.
Ok, I think you guys are ready to move on to our last set of topics, and the whole reason
that we have this lesson and that's the types of taxes in America. Now we're finally ready to talk
about the types of taxes used in our economic system. This video should be just considered an
overview of the topics, they are very complicated and sometimes take years to fully study. I will
give it my best to help you understand as much as you can in this short period of time.
We'll start with everyone's favorite - income tax. Income taxes are taxes levied on the
income of a person's income or the money they earn. This includes income from paychecks or
maybe monetary gifts. Now one has to keep in mind, that this can take two different forms. The
first is one that everybody has to pay, and that's a federal income tax. This applies to every state,
because it's a federal statute. The second is a state income tax, this applies to only the states
who've decided to have them. In case you're wondering, there are seven states without an income
tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. If you want to
see what an income tax looks like, just look at one of our pay stubs. In case, you don't have one
I've created a fake one for you here. What you have here is a person myself who made $1,000 for
this pay period. The federal government decided to take $100 out for federal taxes. The state
government here in California decided to take out 50 and it leaves me with 750 dollars. Now
you'll notice, there are two other fees on here, we'll get to those later in the video, in fact we'll
use this same pay step. For now just understand the federal and the state tax.
Our next one is sales tax. Now sales taxes are levied by the government at the point of
sale. In other words, this is a tax that gets collected when you pay for something. The decision to
have a sales tax is not up to the federal government, it's actually up to each state, because there is
no federal sales tax at this time. Keep in mind, that states have taxes for in-person purchases as
well as online purchases, like here in California that was recently passed. It's easy to see sales
tax, all you have to do is look at your receipt. In this case, I have a receipt here for the Harvard
bookstore. This is not mine, but it's one that I found online. In this case the person spent $20.00,
the sales tax rate is six point two five percent. That means they had a sales tax of one dollar and
twenty five cents. This was collected by the bookstore, and would then be sent on to the state
government.
Our next one is payroll tax. Now this is one of the more complicated ones, because it's
often confused with income tax. Now they're both deducted from your paycheck. However, these
are taxes that are taken for specific programs. What happened is that your employer will collect
taxes from your paycheck and send them to Washington DC. That money is then spent on
specific programs, like Medicare and Social Security. This is different from the income tax
which goes directly to the general fund that our government can spend on anything. Now it's
easy to see these as well, we'll go back to that same pay stub. In this case, I had a salary of one
thousand dollars, my Social Security tax was 60, and my Medicare tax was 40. So, this is where
the other two parts come in.
Now we can move on to property tax. Property taxes are taxes that the government
collects on items that you either recently purchased or that you already own. They're usually
collected twice a year and they're collected by a local tax assessor. Some of the common items
that you would pay property taxes on include: your home, an airplane and possibly even a boat.
What I did is I made up a sample property tax bill for us to look at. Now on here you'll see that it
tells my address, the lot location and that kind of thing. But, the thing I want to focus on is the
tax value. So, what they're telling me is that my home is worth $100,000. In that the tax rate for
our County would be 5%, if they did the calculations, that would mean that this year I owed
them five thousand dollars. Now like I said they usually break this into two and it would mean,
that we would send two checks of 2,500, and this is just to help people not have to turn in one
lump sum.
Sin taxes it might sound strange to say that the government has a sin tax, but it is
exactly like it says. A sin tax is a tax levied on activities that the government thinks is unhealthy.
The tax is meant to discourage the activity as well as to pay for government expenses associated
with health care costs with these activities. Here are some of the examples: we have taxes on
tobacco products, in some cities fast-food, in some states gambling taxes, and one of the more
recent and I think kind of funny is the indoor tanning tax, that they charge you whenever use
indoor tanning. Keep in mind that these differ from state to state and sometimes even city to city.
Our final one is the license and occupational tax. These are taxes or fees that are placed
on licenses or certificates issued by the government. Almost every American will have to pay
these taxes at some point in his or her life. Some examples include a driver's license, or an ID
card, a real estate license, or in my case, a teaching credential, and of course, cosmetology
license. Basically, you're paying the government a tax in return for a certificate that allows you
to drive or to work in a certain occupation. The rates for these usually depend on the state and
they can more than likely run about a hundred dollars or less, some of them get a little bit more.
Well, that's about all the time we have for today's lesson. I hope that you now
understand a little bit more about what a tax is and why they're important. You should also be
able to identify some of the taxes that you'll have to pay in your life, doing so will prevent you
some surprises that you might have faced later on. I hope you enjoyed our lesson and feel free to
check back as I will be posting more videos about economics and the other social studies
subjects that I teach, thank you and goodbye.
Всем привет и добро пожаловать в очередной выпуск программы "Экономика с
мистером Джонсом"! Сегодняшняя тема тому, на что у всех нас есть свое мнение - налоги.
Теперь позвольте мне сначала сказать, что это видео не будет охватывать все виды
налогов, которые используются в нашей стране, я просто опишу главные из них, и с этого
пожалуй начнем. Прежде чем мы пойдем дальше, давайте проведем небольшую
викторину. Сколько налогов вы можете назвать за 10 секунд? Вы готовы? Вперед! Ну, я
надеюсь, что вы хорошо поработали и назвали несколько видов налогов. Ничего
страшного, если вы этого не сделали, именно поэтому мы оказались сегодня здесь. Итак,
темы этого урока, как я уже упоминал, мы будем обсуждать ряд налогов, существующих
на территории Соединенных Штатов. Если более конкретно, то речь пойдет о шести из
них, к ним относятся следующие: подоходный налог, налог с продаж, налог на заработную
плату, налог на имущество, налог на вредные привычки и, наконец, лицензионный и
профессиональный налоги. После всего сказанного мы можем перейти к нашей первой
теме.
Хорошо, я думаю, что вы, ребята, готовы перейти к нашему последнему блоку
тем, который и является основной целью создания этого урока и заключается в
рассмотрении типов налогов в Америке. Теперь мы, наконец, готовы говорить о типах
налогов, используемых в нашей экономической системе. Это видео следует просто
рассматривать как обзор тем, они очень сложны и иногда проходят годы, чтобы
полностью изучить их. Я сделаю все возможное, чтобы помочь вам понять, как можно
больше за этот короткий промежуток времени.
Итак, это все, что у нас было запланировано на сегодняшний урок. Я надеюсь, что
теперь вы немного больше понимаете, что такое налог и почему он так важен. Вы также
должны быть в состоянии определить некоторые виды налогов, которые вам придется
платить в своей жизни, чтобы предотвратить некоторые неприятные сюрпризы, с
которыми вы можете столкнуться в будущем. Я надеюсь, что вам понравился наш урок, и
вы будете рады вернуться, так как я буду публиковать больше видео об экономике и
других социальных дисциплинах, которые я преподаю, спасибо и до свидания.