Self-study
Conclusion The government's tax collection agency has not followed through on its plan, announced a year ago, to crack down on violations of corporate income tax law. ██████ ███ ███ ███████ ████ ███ █████████ ████ ███████████ ███ ████ ███ ████ █████ ███ █ ██████ █████ ██ █████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ██████████
Summarize Argument
The author believes that the government’s tax collection agency has not followed through on its initiative to crack down on violations of corporate income tax law. This is because audits, which are the primary tool to detect these violations, have not been completed a single time through the year-long duration of the initiative.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that just because the audits have not been completed, they have yielded no important information about these corporations and the agency has not taken any meaningful steps to implement their plan.
The author also assumes that not completing audits within a year demonstrates a lack of action from the agency to follow through with their initiative.
1.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
The plan to █████ ████ ██ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██████ ███ ███ ██ ████ ██ █ █████ ████████ ███████ █████████ ███████████
This is irrelevant because it does not address the reasoning between the lack of audits and the agency's failure to follow through on its initiative.
b
The number of ████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ████████ ██████
You have to assume that this explains why no corporate audits were completed. This is far too large of an assumption to make. Also, the argument is not focused on “personal” income taxes
c
Most audits of █████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ███████████ ███████████
Just because “most” audits do not reveal significant violations, does not challenge the author’s claim that they are the most effective way for finding violations.
d
It generally takes ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ ██ █ █████████ ██████ ███ ███████
This provides an alternative explanation for why the audits were not completed. If they typically take longer than a year, then the lack of completed audits could be attributed to a cause other than incompetence.
e
Over the last ████ ██████ █████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ █████████ ████ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ██████
While this indicates that the number of completed corporate audits is decreasing, it does not challenge the author’s reasoning between a lack of audits and whether the agency failed to follow through.