LSAT 158 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q1

LR Question 1 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The government’s tax collection agency has not followed…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: The tax agency didn’t crack down on violations like they planned.

REASONING: In the past year, the agency didn’t complete a single audit.

ANALYSIS: We’re told that audits are the main method by which violations are detected, as well as the time period we’re concerned with – 1 year. But what if audits take more than a year to complete? Then lack of complete audits doesn’t mean the the agency isn’t following through on its plan. It just means that not enough time has passed for there to be results.

___________

1. So what if it’s part of a broad campaign? We only care about corporate income tax violations, not broader misconduct.
2. This answer talks about personal income tax violations. We only care about the plan to crack down on corporate income tax violations.
3. So what? The stimulus said audits are the main tool to detect corporate violations. If the law is working and corporations are deterred from violating it, then we would expect to find a low level of violations. This answer takes a good thing and paints it as a bad thing! It is good if violations are low, assuming audits do find them.
    
   This answer choice is also wrong because it talks about “significant violations” while they stimulus talks about “violations”
4. CORRECT. If it takes longer than a year to complete an audit, then the agency would still be following through on its plan. We won’t know how many audits they started until next year.
5. Just like in B, we don’t care about past years, only this one past year since the plan was announced.

Recap: The question begins with “The government’s tax collection agency has not followed”. It is a Weaken question. Learn how to master LSAT Weaken questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.