Reading comp PrepTest 147 · Section 3 · Question 27

Incorrect. This answer is too weak to serve as a rebuttal in talking about "some" people with high incomes. The argument is about the system as a whole.

Correct. Question Type:
Strengthen/Weaken

Strategy Overview:
Review the end of Passage A to highlight the argument, and then find an answer that would weaken it that doesn't contradict anything said by Passage B

Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
The first step here is to head back to the end of Passage A and clearly define the final argument of that passage. Looking, we see that it's about the unsurprising nature of high-income individuals paying about the same under a flat tax system as under other systems. Why does the Author of Passage A find this unsurprising? Because the other systems provide incentives and opportunities to game the tax system because of its complexity. This is in the context of arguing in favor of a flat tax system.

Since this argument rests on a comparison between flat-tax and other systems, we should find an answer that attacks this comparison between the flat-tax system and the existing systems as far as complexity and incentive to game the tax system.

Answer Explanation:
(Line 25) The Author of Passage A brings up the existing tax codes in many countries and its "complexity" to show that high-income individuals game the system. This is to argue in favor of a flat-tax system that doesn't have such issues. However, if, as this answer states, the complexity is due to loopholes and special deductions rather than something inherent to a graduated system, then one could create a graduated system that doesn't have these loopholes and special deductions—in other words, a simple graduated system is possible, and thus you wouldn't need a flat tax system to ensure that high earners are gaming the system. This undermines this argument in favor of a flat tax system, and it doesn't contradict anything that Passage B says, so it's the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
As with LR, when an argument relies on comparisons, we should focus our attention there. Here, Passage A relied on the key difference between the tax codes being the complexity, and she tied that to the graduated nature of one versus a flat tax. The correct answer showed that the key difference might have been due to another feature of the tax code, not the one under discussion.

Incorrect. Passage A's argument would be strengthened even more if people at all income levels are avoiding taxes under the current systems—that definitely calls for a change!

Incorrect. What taxpayers generally prefer is to pay fewer taxes! Their preferences don't determine good policy or what effect certain policies will have, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. (Lines 26-29) The Author of Passage A advances this argument as part of a comparison of taxes paid under a new flat-tax system as under previous codes, so separate tax regimes are out of scope. Just because something else would achieve this one goal even better doesn't mean that the flat tax isn't better than the graduated ones.