CSEC Principles of Business  /  Government and the economy  /  Taxation

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Taxation

Taxes are payments the law requires people and businesses to make to the government. They pay for public services, and they also let a government steer the economy. Paper 1 tests which taxes are direct and which are indirect more than anything else on this page.

By the end of this page you can

  • State the purposes of taxation, with an example of each
  • Sort taxes into direct and indirect, and say who pays each
  • Trace how an import tax passes from the importer to the shopper
  • Define PAYE, customs duty, excise duty and a progressive tax
  • Distinguish between direct and indirect taxes, with examples

Goals tick themselves off as you try the activities below.

A smiling cashier in a bright green dress and headwrap at a supermarket till, behind the till screen.

Photo: Phumzilesk, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped (goods with brand names cropped off), shoppers in the background and the store’s logos blurred, resized, JPEG q72.

Sales tax is added at the till: the shop collects it from you and pays it to the government.

How often it shows up in past papers

All papers23 of 23 papers
Last 55 of 5 · 2023–2026

Paper 1 counts come from our past-paper bank of CSEC Principles of Business Paper 1s. The last-5 row shows how often it came up in the five most recent papers.

Inside this topic

  1. Why we payLocked
  2. Six taxesLocked
  3. How a tax travelsgameLocked
  4. Key termsLocked
  5. Test yourselfmarkedLocked
  6. Practise for real · 38 past questionsLocked