Govt Protects Consumers From Harmful Products: Safeguards and Regulations - Essay Sample

Introduction

However, there are some ways in which the government may apply them. To protect the consumers from getting a harmful product that may enter the market and later get sold to them. The government has ensured that consumers get the right information about a product, and they also research about the product to make sure that the product they deliver to the consumer is of the standard quality. Like the food-producing companies, some produce products that are harmful for human consumption. Still, there are some standard and regulation which follows to curb consumers vulnerability in this sector.

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Food producing companies may be producing products that are affecting our health. It may be due to ignorance or wrong and inadequate information that consumers get. However, there is also information failure in the market whereby consumers ignore the warning illustrated on a particular product, and they continue using it. Like cigarettes have a sign written on its cover that warns consumers on its side effects like causing cancers, but people do not seem to care about it, thus end up abusing it only to suffer later.

Business Management

There is also imperfect information, which may increase the consumer's vulnerability. Many factors like information may be robust for the consumers to understand, thus making it complicated for the consumers to implement and apply. Thus it may lead to more harm if the consumer does not seek the right guidance.

The other cause is an addiction; this is whereby some drugs may be very addictive; thus, once one gets into them, it is tough to quit like the cigarette smokers, they find it hard to quit smoking as it is very addictive. The other cause is a lack of awareness; it caused by a lack of understanding in a specific area; thus, one may end up making the wrong decision.

There is also misleading information; this may be due to the persuasive advertisement, thus creating a product look more admirable than it should be, and it may end up overselling. However, despite this, for the market to work, there must be asymmetric information.

Asymmetric information is a point whereby the consumer and the manufacturer have the same level of knowledge of a particular product, the benefits, and its side effects. It occurs when two people know more than each other; this makes the business more difficult to be conducted.

Despite all these, the government has intervened to break the information gap. It has achieved this by making sure that products have labels like a cigarette. It is clearly labeled with a warning so that it may reduce the rate of smoking. It has also improved nutrition information to fight obesity, there is also consumer protection law, and finally, there is information campaigning to combat tobacco and drug abuse.

The government has come up with these measures, which has helped to reduce the rate of consumers' vulnerability in the market, thus creating more awareness and fighting for their rights. However, some companies are very immoral, and they end imitating some products, thus creating a more significant loose to the consumer as they spend more money by buying the incorrect product.

These may lead to high lose and hinder the rate of innovation and invention. Imitation may affect both the consumer and the producer in one way or another. If a consumer happens to buy a product from a specific producer and he realizes that the product was not of the quality he expected it to be, he may decide to change from buying to that company. Hence finding another replacement to his taste and shifting to another producer. However, innovation is necessary for social welfare. Innovation is a critical factor as it helps to increase the quality of a product in the market. It comes from industries that might be experiencing little competition in the market.

There are some claims between the relationship between innovation and the level of competition, which seem to be more complicated and complex to understand. One side views change to be stronger in areas where the market is vast as there are a lot of resources to pay for it, and the possibility of reaping from it is very high.

The other side believes that innovation may be very competitive in small firms. It environments as they have more to gain from its novelty and less loose, and thus they may face a lot of pressure to thrive in their business as innovation help a business to succeed due to its uniqueness in innovation.

In between, there is a theory that equalizes levels of market competition that is a curve that explains the relationship between innovation and concentration looks like U invented(Hall&Scherer2006,p,20). Imitation may cause a lot of mistrust and fear among the consumers as they are not sure whether they are purchasing the correct product or not, due to the increment t of an inferior quality product in the market.

Imitation may also lead to the decline of individual producers and loose of customers to buy the product. However, innovation should be highly appreciated as it may create a lot of income if a particular good change is new in the market. Innovation may lead to a company to grow and become a big company; however, when a company becomes large, and they tend to evade taxation; thus, they create a lot of income without following the correct procedure and also by not following the law of a country. Due to this habit, there are some measures which should get implemented to deal with this vice. It may help to curb consumers' vulnerability and also to help to protect the economy, which is also profoundly affected. With the advancement of technology, everything has become digital, and also the method of taxation has also become digital.

This method of digital taxation has helped a lot as it is now tough to evade tax. Some companies avoid tax by finding ways to shift U.S. profits to foreign countries with lower tax rates; this process got to be known as a tax shelter. There is also another way that uses accelerated depreciation.

There is also another form of tax evasion called the tax loophole it the provision of tax code that allows taxpayers to decrease tax and their tax liability. To fight tax eviction, which may cause the decline of some companies and also increase the level of consumers' vulnerability. Some ways got innovated to help fight against tax evection.

One is false invoicing; it is a feature of the technology solution; this one is the best practices, the economy, and sharing economy. Finally, there is electronic sales suppression, and counter technology in these all information collected must be kept separately from the cash register and in a well-secured place to avoid it getting tampered with and also to prefect it from hackers. For these to happen, some action may also get taken as the type and degree of tools needed to implement a data recording solution that may depend on the national legal framework

False invoicing has solutions which are, requiring an electronic invoice. A business should have records of all the transactions they have made with the customers, and they should produce an invoice to the customer after purchasing a product; the invoice should be either in the form of paper or electronic. False invoice is more conducive as it may contain many features; these features are useful by providing accurate information and useful ones, thus reducing the level of invasion of tax, as it may detect false information.

Due to the high level of tax eviction, it has made both disadvantages and advantages at the same time. It may get achieved by the company that is evading tax, maybe seems to be more successful than those that pay taxes regularly. Some companies which have high sales in the market seem to be causing a downfall to other minor companies, as they pay the same amount of tax.

To fight and protect consumers from vulnerability, the government should continue and standard firm and deal with any form of corruption at any angle. It should also educate the customers on a specific product. It is also the responsibility of the consumers to be attentive and curious when making any purchase so that they avoid being vulnerable: companies should also follow the law and pay the tax as per the agreement made.

References

Hadzhieva, E., 2019. Impact of Digitalisation on International Tax Matters: Challenges and Remedies. Study for the Committee on Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion, and Tax Avoidance.

Policy Department for Economic, Scientific, and Qualify of Life Policies, European Parliament, Luxembourg Authority, F.C., 2015. Consumer vulnerability.

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