[Nem]

In large part its complicated because people want you to do some things and not others. Say you want to advantage some elements of society or certain behaviours, starting a business or getting married for instance, and discourage some others like driving. You might put a larger tax on fuel for non-commercial uses and cut down on the taxes for married couples and people with businesses that yield under a certain income bracket. Basically you take money from different parts of the system in varying amounts in order to balance the things out with your vision of where society's resources should go and if you're very lucky it actually balances.

That's a simplified version of one theory of taxation anyway, in reality it hardly ever balances and under some theories you don’t want it to anyway.
_________________
Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa

[Shiru04]

Har har, I got my taxes done ages ago. Already received AND spent my rebate check. I can't save a dime...