State tax officials, having had considerable success in persuading del

Responding to a pm:

Plan:
State has had considerable success in collecting individuals' back taxes through reduced penalties incentive.
It intends to do the same with corporations.

We need to find an assumption - something that is required to make this plan work.

A) federal tax officials will not attempt to collect back taxes in the same manner
We don't need to worry about what federal tax officials may do. It is irrelevant to our argument.

B) stiff fines are not the only way to collect past due corporate taxes
This NEEDS to be correct for our plan to work. We plan to give reduced penalties incentive i.e. we plan to reduce stiff fines. If stiff fines were the only way to collect past due corporate taxes, then our plan will fail. We have to assume that past due taxes can be collected without stiff fines too. And hence this is the answer.

C) corporations tend to be delinquent in their taxes for teh same length of time that individual taxpayers are
The length of time for which the back taxes are due has not been discussed anywhere and has no relevance to our argument. We are concerned about reducing penalties.

D) past due taxes cannot be collected without a reduction in penalties
We do not NEED this for our plan to be successful. It is not a necessary condition. Think of it this way. I have a problem A - (back taxes). I decide to solve it by using solution B (reduce stiff penalties). For my plan to succeed, is it necessary that B is the ONLY solution to A? No. There could be ten other solutions - C, D etc. I chose to use B as a solution but it needn't be the only solution for B to be successful. Hope you see why (D) is not correct.

E) penalties for delinquent corporations will have to be reduced by the same percentage as were penalties for delinquent individuals.
We don't need to assume this. We might be able to make the plan work with a smaller cut in the fines or might need to bigger cut for the corporations.

Answer (B)