Self-employed people pay income tax through self-assessment. This means that they calculate how much tax they owe themselves. They must fill in a tax return and send it to Revenue on or before a certain date each year.
What taxes do they pay? A
Go to page 225 of your Activities and Accounts Book to identify the taxes paid by the individual and business described.
THE PURPOSE OF TAXATION
As we learned in chapter 31, the main purpose of taxation is to raise finance for government expenditure. However, taxation also has other purposes.
Social Purpose
The money collected from taxes can be redistributed for the social good. The homeless, the unemployed, lone-parent families and people living with illness and disabilities are eligible for social welfare.
By heavily taxing items that are harmful to citizens’ health, such as cigarettes and alcohol, unhealthy choices are discouraged. Likewise,
taxing vehicles with high C02 emissions at a higher rate encourages people to drive cars that are less harmful to the environment.
