I DETEST THIS QUESTION

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I DETEST THIS QUESTION

by hitmewithgmat » Tue Oct 20, 2009 2:49 pm
One state adds a 7 percent sales tax to the price of most products purchased within its jurisdiction. This tax, therefore, if viewed as tax on income, has the reverse effect of the federal income tax: the lower the income, the higher the annual percentage rate at which the income is taxed.
The conclusion above would be properly drawn if which of the following were assumed as a premise?
(A) The amount of money citizens spend on products subject to the state tax tends to be equal across income levels.
(B) The federal income tax favors citizens with high incomes, whereas the state sales tax favors citizens with low incomes.
(C) Citizens with low annual incomes can afford to pay a relatively higher percentage of their incomes in state sales tax, since their federal income tax is relatively low.
(D) The lower a state's sales tax, the more it will tend to redistribute income from the more affluent citizens to the rest of society.
(E) Citizens who fail to earn federally taxable income are also exempt from the state sales tax.
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by hitmewithgmat » Tue Oct 20, 2009 3:11 pm
I got A by POE but still I don't know why the answer is A. even if you got right answer, if you can't explain it, then you don't know it... somebody told me... and that's true... wait for your replies. thanks.
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by hitmewithgmat » Tue Oct 20, 2009 3:27 pm
my understanding is....
Sales tax-whether you are rich or not, the state will add 7 percent sales price to most of the products.

This tax , if viewed as income, will have reverse(opposite) effect of the federal income tax.
the lower the income, (the more you are poor)
the higher the annual percentage rate at which the income is taxed. (what does this mean?)

could you explain this? and what are we assuming from this?
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by vijay_venky » Tue Oct 20, 2009 7:46 pm
I got the answer as A after POE,

Now what is the conclusion?
This tax, therefore, if viewed as tax on income, has the reverse effect of the federal income tax: the lower the income, the higher the annual percentage rate at which the income is taxed.


Now if the amount that you pay is the same then what happens to the percentage rate as it was discussed.

TAX/(low income) and TAX/(high income)

the first one is definitely greater than the second and it is the way in which I reasoned it out.

If we assume that people with different income levels spend different amounts then the relation as mentioned in the stimulus (the lower the income, the higher the annual percentage rate at which the income is taxed) could not have been achieved.

So even if we take the different approach for an assumption question (negating the choices to get a weakening option), A seems to be the best one.

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by hitmewithgmat » Wed Oct 21, 2009 7:13 am
wow, thanks for the explanation. it is clear now.
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Re: I DETEST THIS QUESTION

by youngdanf » Wed Oct 21, 2009 5:05 pm
Not to beat this to death, but here's the way I went about it....
(A) states that the amount of money spent is basically equal across income levels.
So, lets say we have 2 people, one has income of 500, the other with 10,000. Both spend 100 (the amounts are equal across income levels). The 7% is 7 dollars, but as a percentage of income the first is 1.4% of income whereas the second person is paying just .07% of their income in tax.
This would support the statement "the lower the income, the higher the annual percentage rate at which the income is taxed."
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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:53 am
Received a PM asking me to reply. Please remember to cite the source of the question! Experts aren't supposed to reply unless we're given the source.

If you still want me to reply, go ahead and post the source (though it looks like another student may have already explained this to your satisfaction?).
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