National Budget, Debt & Taxes Summary Taxes are fee charges by a government on an income, activity or a product. A tax is a “pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property owners to support the government… a payment exacted by legislative authority” according to Black’s Law Dictionary. Taxes are also consisted the other levy imposed upon a taxpayer by a state or financial charges. According to the law of a state, taxpayers have to pay the percentage of the total amount of payments of taxes that the state law had stipulated when purchasing spending their money. Taxpayers are usually had to pay taxes from the salaries they are earning. Taxes may be paid in money or as its labor equivalent and they are consisting of direct or indirect taxes. For example, if taxes are levied on corporate or personal income directly, then it is called a direct tax. If taxes are levied on the service or the price of goods, then it is called an indirect tax. Financing government expenditure is the purpose of taxation. One of the most important uses of taxes is to finance services and public goods, for example, street cleaning and lighting are considered public services. Because that there can’t be a market in the service and goods, since public services and goods don’t allow exclusion by a consumer, or a non-payer to be excluded, so they need to proved by the government or an agency, which tend to finance themselves through taxes. Also, there are several kinds of taxes in the category, including income tax, negative income tax, capital gains tax, corporate tax, property tax, inheritance tax, expatriation tax, etc. Both of my articles are talking about President Obama’s new idea about making the wealthy people to pay a higher tax in order to restore fairness, and the articles also mentioned how this idea affect the community and the country, and also how it makes differences to