Learn Tax Basics: 38 Flashcards on Progressive, Regressive, VAT and Excise Taxes
Study guide to deck RG3080: progressive vs regressive tax, VAT vs sales tax, excise, estate, land-value tax and seigniorage, plus the cards you should add yourself.
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Deck RG3080 "Tax Basics: Personal & Business" has 38 cards, and one thing to know before you start: despite the title, it is not a guide to filing your own return or running a company's books. It is a clean vocabulary of tax types and tax theory, cut from an encyclopedic overview of taxation. That makes it an excellent foundation for economics, public finance or an accounting intro course, as long as you study it for what it is.
Study this deck: Tax Basics: Personal & Business
1 / 10Tax
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
What the cards actually cover
The deck moves in three blocks:
- Rate structures (cards 1-5): tax, direct vs indirect, progressive, regressive, proportional (flat).
- A catalogue of taxes (cards 6-29, 36-37): corporate tax, VAT, excise, property, wealth, inheritance/estate, capital gains, payroll, ad valorem vs per unit, tariff, poll tax, sin tax, carbon tax, stamp duty, land-value tax, expatriation tax, remittance tax, use tax, gross receipts tax, plus PAYE, negative income tax, fiscal capacity, tax havens and tax compliance.
- History and theory (cards 30-35, 38): seigniorage, corvée and tithe, Roman publicani, zakat and jizya, excess burden, hypothecation, tax farming.
Sample cards
| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| Regressive tax | The effective tax rate decreases as the amount to which the rate is applied increases |
| VAT vs sales tax | VAT is collected at each stage, businesses remitting only the value-added portion; sales tax is collected once at final sale |
| Per unit tax | Base is the quantity, regardless of price (e.g., excise per pack of cigarettes) |
| Inheritance tax (estate tax) | In the US, estate tax is on the deceased's estate while inheritance tax is on beneficiaries |
| Land-value tax (LVT) | Levied only on the unimproved value of land; argued not to create deadweight losses |
| Gross receipts tax | A tax on gross revenues regardless of profit; can create a 'tax on tax' effect |
| Seigniorage | The tax on the creation of money |
| Hypothecation | Tax proceeds earmarked for a purpose (alcohol tax funding alcohol-related care) |
How to study it
Sort every tax on two axes. Most cards are really answering two hidden questions: what is the base (income, value, quantity, wealth, a transaction, a person) and who bears it (direct or indirect). Draw a 2-column grid and drop each card into it: property tax = ad valorem + direct, excise per pack = per unit + indirect, poll tax = per person + fixed. Once you can place a tax in the grid, the definition almost writes itself.
Add the missing card: marginal rate. Cards 3-5 define progressive, regressive and flat taxes using the effective rate, but the deck never defines the marginal rate, the one that confuses people most when they read a tax bracket table. Write it yourself: marginal = rate on the next dollar earned, effective = total tax divided by total income. Also note that card 34 (excess burden) is what economists call deadweight loss; tag it so it links to card 27.
Merge the twins. Card 32 (publicani) and card 38 (tax farming) describe the same system; keep them as a pair, Rome as the example of the general rule. Likewise, sin tax (19) is a subtype of excise (9).
What to add if you need the personal and business side
If you came for the practical half of the title, write your own cards for: taxable income, standard vs itemized deductions, tax credits vs deductions, withholding, depreciation, and deductible business expenses. The deck gives you the theory; those cards give you the return.
For the next step in the same category, pair this deck with Accounting Essentials or Financial Statement Analysis.
Find RG3080 in the Flip It library at flip-it.app.
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