What are the responsibilities and duties of government as regards to the taxation system?

Answer 1

It increases the tax rate as income rises.

Theoretically, a democratic government is charged with collecting a certain percentage of its citizens' income and dividing that revenue equitably among all citizens in order to provide them with the infrastructure to live as comfortably as possible on the available funds thus collected. Imagine you are part of a church community in which all members contribute a certain percentage of their income: those who have little income or other monies are taken care of by those who have more. Those administering the money coming into the church are committed to ensure these funds are carefully used and not, for example, employed to provide a special income to the administrators, nor to ensure the administration has a lot of members' funds in reserve in order to buy favours from outside influences who, in return, keep the administrators happy, healthy and wealthy. Occasionally it turns out our community administrators are using members' money in order to keep themselves in luxury, while their community runs pie stalls in order to raise funds to feed, clothe and house and provide medical attention to poorer community members as and when they need it. Eventually, too many community members are asking awkward questions, and the administration is running out of extra financial support for those turning up with auditors. When this happens, the administration is investigated and if it proves they're keeping money for themselves instead of using it as they've promised and as they're committed to, they are replaced by a new administration which promises to use its members' money to keep all members as comfortable as possible. This is how a democratic government is supposed to work when it comes to using available funds to keep the citizens equitably cared for. Consider a family consisting of two parents and three children. One parent goes out to work in order to earn money, money which is carefully divided in order to keep the family housed, fed, clothed and educated. The other parent stays at home to look after the children because they are very young; that parent contributes no money to the family, but does contribute hugely in terms of administration. Food is bought and cooked; the family's washing and cleaning is done, and the children are kept secure and happy with the help of the parent who stays home with them, as well as by the parent who arrives home before bedtime to supervise baths, read bedtime stories and be there to share mutual support with the parent who stays at home. Thus the money coming into the family keeps it all together. Now consider the same family in a situation where the breadwinner spends a lot of time networking in order to bring home more bread. Possibly the networking consists of long dinners and expensive favours done for those who might, just might, reciprocate with expensive favours of their own. Less money becomes available to that part of the family unable to contribute financially, and less general support becomes available to them. Supplementary income earned by those not in control of the family finances is used to promote ways to earn more money to support the family, but in reality the extra money goes to keep the main administration in a nice office which impresses the network, and a huge amount of the family finances are spent to keep rival organizations impressed with, and cowed by, the power wielded by the administration in the nice office. Are you getting a rough idea of how taxation systems work? If not, approach your local, state, or federal government and ask them what percentage of the taxes you pay are spent on what benefits you directly. Good luck.