TOEFL writing-TPO 53 Integrated Writing

The reading passage claims that high taxes on cigarettes and other unhealthy foods have several benefits, but the lecture attacks these arguments one by one.

First, the article contends that high tax would lead people to buy fewer of these unhealthy products, resulting in a healthier society and lower obesity rates. To prove the fragility of this standpoint, the speaker argues that high taxes would make people buy cheaper cigarettes with lower quality, which contain more harmful components, leading to greater health risks. Moreover, high taxes on unhealthy food cannot prevent people from buying them, but leave less money for people to buy healthy food.

Second, the reading material maintains that taxes on unhealthy products are financially fair because it makes people who choose to participate in unhealthy activities contribute more medical costs. But the lecture offers an opposite stand that this argument hasn’t taken into account people’s income. High taxes are a great expense for people with small incomes.

Third, the writer holds that governments can use the tax revenue for other public projects which benefit everyone. But the professor refutes this point because the amount of the tax revenue is large so that the governments would unwilling to lose this income, leading to opposite consequences. For instance, the government would not publish radical policies such as forbidding smoking in the park, since they want to obtain this large amount of tax income.