Earmark (finance)

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In public finance, an earmark is a requirement that all or a portion of a certain source of revenue, such as a particular tax, be devoted to a specific public expenditure. For example, in the United Kingdom a tax on televisions (known as the television licence) is directly allocated to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Earmarking bypasses the normal procedure by which tax revenue is pooled in a general fund and then allocated among various government spending programs as opposed to a specific program.