Public services, taxes and budget - Let´s review and create a Mindmap

Dear students,

Let´s investigate a little bit more about the public services in Spain

What are the public services? Who provide them? How do we pay for them?

Public services are those which are provided by the government. The citizens pay taxes in order to pay these public services, so then, they don’t need to pay extra money for it: health care, education, security guards, waste patrols, gardening services...

The constitution guarantees everyone’s right to public services. It also establishes everyone’s duty to pay tax to finance public services.

I.) LOCAL COUNCILS are generally responsible for services such as street lighting, waste collection and treatment, libraries, parks and sports facilities.

II.) The national government provides public services such as social security, tax collection, the military, civil guard and national police.

III.) Autonomous communities have different levels of responsibility for public services: education, health and public transport. Some of autonomous communities, even have their own police force: “Ertzaintza” in País Vasco or the “Mossos d’Esquadra” in Cataluña

Taxes:

Public services are paid for with taxes. Taxes are deducted from workers´salaries and the profits that companies make. We also pay tax when we buy products or use a service. This is called value-added tax (VAT).

A budget is a plan for how to spend money. The national´s goverment´s budget is about 470.000 million per year. A lot of this money is used to pay the pensions of retired people and to support people who are unemployed. 

Let's create a mindmap with some previous questions!

- What are public services?- What do citizens do to contribute or pay for the public services?

- what does the constitution guarantee?

- what are the local council government responsible for?

- what public services does the national government provide?

- what level of services do the Autonomous Communities have?

- Why do we need taxes?

- what is a budget?

- can you mention an example of how the national budget is used?