Is it common that a country has a law that supports additional taxing for national media? An European country Slovenia (That small thing east of Italy) has a law that basically forces each household to pay additional tax each month for national radio-and-tv station. The amount is fixed to nearly 15€ per month regardless of household financial position. This is not about companies or public-like places such as pubs. By law a person or a family needs to pay this monthly fee regardless of actual usage of this service. A person or family may opt out of this by ensuring that they have no way of connecting to the national radio or television. So already owning a car or even a phone with internet capabilities is out of question. Is this common/normal? Does every (or most) country have such a law? This kind of law to me seems very dangerous and scary. In a way I feel like every year a new such law could be created and suddenly after 10 laws you pay 150€ per month additional tax regardless of your financial status and/or usage of services you are charged with extra. Just for more info (though I feel a bit weak with my English at this point): The law basically states that the institute for national radio and television may gather data from those paying for electricity. They are to use this list to demand payment. So basically each household needs to pay once per month. And to opt out there should be no technically possible solution to connect to radio or television at all.
Given that there are almost 200 countries on Earth and most people don't have any information about Lesotho (etc) it is impossible to say what the frequency of such taxes is. There are also many ways in which media-taxes are imposed, so it depends on which sub-class of taxes you're interested in. However, such taxes are by no means rare. Many countries impose a license requirement on televisions and / or radio: Albania, Austria, Bosnia, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Montenegro, South Korea, South Africa, UK and so on. It is also indirectly collected as a fee on electric bills in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Pakistan, Turkey, Mauritius. In general, when broadcasting is state-supported, the state gets its money from taxes, so the case in Norway and Sweden seems to be that you pay a tax for broadcast, and it's just part of your taxes, just like in the US the local transit tax becomes part of your property tax. Note that I did not list a majority of the countries in the world, because I don't know about taxing and broadcasting in Lesotho (etc.). This page gives some information, but it's not authoritative or exhaustive.
A contract need not say anything about the fact that the company could be sold. What matters is that the terms of the contract are not changed. Since there is no opt-out on transfer clause, you have to finish the term of the contract (or pay whatever fee is assessed if there is an early termination clause). So the question is how certain you are that you did not agree to the possibility of adding a "Universal Service Fund" charge. There may be subtle language which allows the company to add charges for specified purposes, and the new owners are availing themselves of that possibility. It may be difficult to determine just how this fee is legal (if it is), because customer service might just say "we are now charging this fee", or "we have to charge this fee", but you could try asking them where in the contract this new fee is allowed. You can hire an attorney to read over the contract to see where this possibility is mentioned; perhaps it is not, and then an exchange of letters between attorneys might be necessary. There is such a thing as the Universal Service Fund, which is a government operation to improve rural telecommunications. Telecomm companies have to pay a percent of their interstate revenues to this fund. If your bill has not increased since the acquisition, that suggests that you simply did not know that you had been paying into the fund, since the original company didn't give you a detailed invoice. If it has increased by this amount, that suggests that the earlier owner hadn't exercised an option to pass the cost on to the customer. It is likely that there is some clause in the contract that addresses charges required by law. That does not mean that you could not prevail in a suit against the company, but it would make the job harder (more expensive) for you. One company sort of explains how they are legally allowed to pass the cost on to the customer. Because it is allowed by federal regulation, it need not be mentioned in the contract.
Yes, there is a reasonableness limit, and this is especially true in consumer transactions. If you were given an estimate and the final bill is a lot more than what you were expecting, you can dispute it. The final price should be ‘reasonable’. The law doesn’t say what counts as reasonable, so you’ll have to agree it between you. You should consider: the estimate you agreed to [if there was one] any changes, and why they happened anything that happened that was beyond the control of the trader, like bad weather or the cost of materials going up https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/getting-home-improvements-done/problem-with-home-improvements/ When it comes to work itself, the act states that a tradesman or professional has a 'duty of care' towards you and your property. Any standard or price you agree must be honoured. But if it isn't agreed in advance the work must be done to a reasonable standard, at a reasonable cost, and within a reasonable time. So if you haven't fixed a price, you don't have to pay a ridiculously high bill. All you have to pay is what you consider 'reasonable' and invite them to sue you for the rest. Be careful though, in some circumstances when you are withholding payment you may have a claim made against you by a supplier if you are in breach of contract. What's a reasonable amount would be what similar tradesmen would have charged for the job. So get a few quotations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1fdlwC9xzyxjCpWMlsCGG3j/supply-of-services NB that article refers to The Supply of Goods &amp; Services Act 1982, which was partially superseded by the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
canada* What you describe is completely acceptable First, one of the goals of child support is to provide a similar standard of living in each household, so spending an amount on rent that happens to be a large portion of the child support amount is understandable. Second, the fact that the child only spends part of their time at Parent B's home is already accounted for in the computation of the amount owing. Child support in Canada is based almost exclusively on the income of the parents, taking into account the proportion of time the child spends with each parent. And this is all subject to any specific hardships of the paying parent. Only where a portion of child support is based on a special and extraordinary expenditure (e.g. a specific extracurricular activity, or medical insurance) is it expected the claimant make that specific expenditure. If they stop making that expenditure, then the child support add-on associated with that expenditure is removed. * I understand the question is directed to Arkansas, but I have provided an answer for those interested in Canadian law, in line with the guidance here (&quot;Even if you supply a jurisdiction tag, we expect and encourage answers dealing with other jurisdictions – while it might not answer your question directly, your question will be here for others who may be from those jurisdictions. If you do this, please tag your answer using the tag markdown: [tag: some-tag]&quot;).
By volume, it's almost certainly Statutory Instruments (SIs). From the relevant page on legislation.gov.uk, we can see that the number since 2010 has ranged from 1241 to 3485 per year. Compare that to, say, Acts of Parliament (23 to 41 per year in that period). The EUR-Lex page has some numbers relating to EU law. For example, in 2018, there were a total of 430 "legislative acts", and 1496 "non-legislative acts". Note that while EU Regulations become law directly in member states, EU Directives have to be implemented by domestic legislation. In the UK, this is normally done with SIs, which contribute to the numbers in the previous paragraph.
TL;DR: No. In the United States, schools tend to be funded by property taxes locally, occasionally with an added income tax. Those funds go to the schools' local taxing authority. That taxing authority may cover multiple schools. At minimum, it will almost certainly cover an elementary school and a high school, but it often covers multiple elementary schools and may cover multiple high schools. For example, in many cities, all public (government-run) schools are funded by the same taxing authority. If you had children, you might, in some places, be able to choose the school they attended and thereby direct some money to that school or schools. But that wouldn't be related to the amount that you paid in any way. That amount may be more or less than the amount that you pay. It would have some relation to the amount that the child pays. There is no way to redirect the funds that you pay. They always go to the local taxing authority. If you want to pay a different local taxing authority, then you need to buy your property in an area covered by that taxing authority. For example, you might prefer to live in the city rather than a suburb. You can donate additional money above and beyond your taxes to an individual school. Contact the individual school for details. But this won't change the taxes that you owe. Schools also get funding from the state and federal governments, mostly state. Given that you are subject to taxation by a particular state, you can't transfer those taxes either. Same thing with the US as a whole. It won't allow you to choose to pay your income taxes to a different country without changing your residence (and might not then).
Bill and Jane are free to enter into a contract where, among other things, each provides valuable consideration; in this case Bill provides valuable lawn mowing services and Jane provides valuable money. In week No 1 they have negotiated the terms and the contract is complete when Bill mows the lawn and Jane pays the money. If Bill turns up next week without Jane's instruction then there is no contract and Jane does not have to pay anything; I don't think this is what you are asking but I include it for completeness. If it is understood that this arrangement continue week after week then either there is an ongoing contract or, more likely, a series of independent contracts. If there is an ongoing contract, then it can be renegotiated but it cannot be changed unilaterally by Bill. That is, he cannot unilaterally increase the price to $2. If there is a series of contracts then the terms of each of those contracts will be the same based on the course of dealing. Basically, the parties have accepted over a long period of time that the rate for a mow is $1 and Bill would have to get Jane to accept the revised rate before he mows the lawn. For your example, Jane owes Bill $1 but if she wants him back next week she will have to agree to Bill's rate.
A divorce settlement must be approved by the court. A Judge might well refuse to approve a settlement with such a provision in it, although I do not know of any law specifically barring such a term. But once the settlement is final, one party could certainly offer a separate contract to the other, under which one party would agree to remain outside the state (or metropolitan region, or county, or wherever) in return for an agreed recurring payment. There would be no compulsion to accept such a contract, but if the payment offered was large enough, it might be accepted voluntarily. However, if there was a child involved, and such a move would significantly hinder that child's contact with both parents, and this were not in the child's best interest, such a contract might be attacked as against public policy.