Ex.17. Read and discuss the following facts about taxes

· The Gettysburg address* is 269 words, the Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words, and the Holy Bible is only 773,000 words. However, the tax law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913 to over 7 million words today.

· There are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions.

· The IRS** sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth.

· American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours of their time to comply with the federal tax laws each year. That’s more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.

· The IRS employs 114,000 people; that’s twice as many as the CIA and five times more than the FBI.

· 60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.

· Taxes eat up 38.2% of the average family's income; that's more than for food, clothing and shelter combined.

*The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the most well-known speeches in United States history. It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

**The IRS - The Internal Revenue Service – Податкове Управління США

TEXT B: TAXATION IN THE UK