LIC AAO (Assistant Administrative Officer) 2015 Exam Question paper

Rearrange the following six sentences (A), (B), (C), (D), (E) and (F) in the proper sequence so as to form a meaningful paragraph, and then answer the questions given below them.
(A) The study also shows that firms also contribute a significant amount to property taxes, sales taxes, environmental taxes and so on.
(B) In fact, a study by PWC, an accountancy firm, shows that on average companies pay more tax on labour such as employer’s social security contributions, than on profits.
(C) This widely held belief is wrong.
(D) The only tax paid by businesses is the one levied on their profits.
(E) Accordingly their analysis of data shows that the average global company pays some 43.1 percent of its commercial profits in tax, of which 16.3 percentage points is labour related, 16.1 profit related and 10.7 others.
(F) But with the challenging face of business, this traditional distribution of taxation needs a second look.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given. Certain words/phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

Inland waterways, as quiet as a mouse, keep the nation’s economy flowing as they transport $180 billion of coal, steel, chemicals and other goods each year across 38 states. Yet, an antiquated system of locks and dams threatens the timely delivery of those goods daily.

Locks and dams raise or lower ships from one water level to the next, but breakdown of these carriers are frequent. The outage, which began last July, and is expected to end this August, will cost the power generation company and its customers $5.5 million as the utility ferries coal and other supplies along the river for itself and other businesses. As the economy picks up, the nation’s creaking infrastructure will increasingly struggle to handle the load. That will make products more expensive as businesses pay more for shipping or maneuver around roadblocks and it will cause the nation to lose exports to other countries both of which are expected to hamper the recovery. `The good news is, that the economy is turning,” says Dan Murray, Vice President of the Transportation Research Institute.

“The bad news is we expect congestion to skyrocket,” he added. The ancient lockanddam system is perhaps the most egregious example of aging or congested transportation systems that are being outstripped by demand. Fourteen locks, out of the total twenty eight are expected to fail by 2020, costing the economy billions of dollars. Meanwhile, seaports cannot accommodate larger container ships, slowing exports and imports highways are too narrow. Bridges are overtaxed. The shortcomings were partly masked during the recession as fewer people worked and less freight was shipped, easing traffic on transportation corridors. But interviews with shippers and logistics companies showed that delays started lengthening along with the moderately growing economy. Yet there is little prospect for more infrastructure investment as a divided Government battles about how to cut the $1.3 trillion deficit and State and Local Governments face their own budget shortfalls. Government investment in highways, bridges, water systems, schools and other projects has fallen each year since 2008. IHS Global Insight expects such outlays to drop by 4.4% this year and 3% in the next year. According to experts, the country is spending about half of the $2.2 trillion that it should over a five year period to repair and expand overburdened infrastructure.