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.
It is said that imposing high taxes on purchasing unhealthy food like cigarettes has various benefits in the passage. However, the lecturer in the listening part considers these benefits easily challenged.
Initially, it is argued in the passage that high taxes on unhealthy food serves as a motivation for people to not indulge in unhealthy behaviors like eating too much junk food, which contributes to the decrease of obesity rates. However, the lecturer claims that high taxes will not necessarily lead to the discouragement of unhealthy behaviors. The fact that high taxes for cigarettes drive people to purchase cigarettes of lower quality, thus inversely increasing healthy risks. Likewise, people may continue to purchase unhealthy food while are forced to spend less money on healthy ones because of imposing taxes on those food.
Furthermore, it is financially fair, according to the passage, for all the taxpayers since it is unfair to make people possessing healthy diets to pay for the medical cost generated by those possessing unhealthy diets owing to high possibility of getting sick. Nonetheless, the lecturer holds the view that it is the ways of thinking about fairness that contribute to our judgement on whether it is financially fair or not, since high taxes imposed on low-income people with unhealthy diets creates more hurden than those high-income people even if they have the same consumption.
Additionally, it is claimed that imposing the taxes on unhealthy food will significantly increase the revenue of governments, which can be utilized on medical assistance, public welfare and government-supported service. However, the lecturer says that the increase of revenue has downside that governments would probably become dependent on these income, thus unwilling to enforcing policies to eliminate bad behaviors altogether like the case that cigarettes are not fully prohibited in all public space.
In conclusion, the benefits raised by the passage, from the perspective of the lecturer, is not so reliable and convincing.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 621, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this food' or 'those foods'?
Suggestion: this food; those foods
...althy ones because of imposing taxes on those food. Furthermore, it is financially fair...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 342, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this income' or 'these incomes'?
Suggestion: this income; these incomes
...ents would probably become dependent on these income, thus unwilling to enforcing policies t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, furthermore, however, if, likewise, may, nonetheless, so, thus, while, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 12.0772626932 99% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 22.412803532 107% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 30.3222958057 155% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1746.0 1373.03311258 127% => OK
No of words: 319.0 270.72406181 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.47335423197 5.08290768461 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.22617688928 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.0181625431 2.5805825403 117% => OK
Unique words: 170.0 145.348785872 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.532915360502 0.540411800872 99% => OK
syllable_count: 554.4 419.366225166 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.55342163355 109% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.23620309051 73% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 13.0662251656 84% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 29.0 21.2450331126 137% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 75.8252667281 49.2860985944 154% => OK
Chars per sentence: 158.727272727 110.228320801 144% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.0 21.698381199 134% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.09090909091 7.06452816374 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 4.45695364238 179% => OK
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: 0.39340612269 0.272083759551 145% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.162042852267 0.0996497079465 163% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.111353695766 0.0662205650399 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.201140218548 0.162205337803 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.128749710629 0.0443174109184 291% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.8 13.3589403974 141% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 33.58 53.8541721854 62% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 5.55761589404 202% => Smog_index is high.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 11.0289183223 143% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.04 12.2367328918 123% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.33 8.42419426049 111% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 63.6247240618 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 10.7273730684 112% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 10.498013245 130% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.