#0364 – Filing Taxes, - Ang, mater, ESL Podcast McQuillan Jeff mp3+PDF
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English as a Second Language Podcast
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ESL Podcast 364 – Filing Taxes
GLOSSARY
taxes –
payments that citizens make to the government; money that the
government takes from citizens
* How much did you pay in taxes last year?
to look (something) over –
to review something; to read something and check it
for correctness or accuracy
* Do you look over your children’s homework before they give it to their teacher?
exempt –
not subject to something; not being required to do or pay something
because it is not applicable to oneself
* Peace Corps Volunteers are sometimes exempt from paying application fees
when they apply for graduate school.
EZ tax return –
a simplified form for paying one’s taxes to the U.S. government
* If you have only one job and not very many investments, the easiest way to file
your taxes is to fill out the EZ tax return.
earnings –
money that one receives from jobs or investments
* When Marty accepted the new job, his annual earnings doubled.
salary –
the amount of money that one receives in a year for working for a
company or organization
* The engineering company offers a starting salary of $72,000.
dividends –
money earned on one’s investments; money received as a
percentage of the amount that one has invested in some way; money paid by a
company to its investors
* When you invest in a company, you might earn dividends or you might lose
money.
dependent –
a person, usually a child, who depends on another person for
financial support, including food, housing, and clothing
* His parents listed him as a dependent until he turned 18 years old and started
living alone.
withholdings –
the money that a worker does not receive because it is taken out
of his or her payments in order to pay taxes
* If you have a job that pays $100,000 per year, you will probably receive only
around $70,000, because about 30% might be kept as withholdings.
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ESL Podcast 364 – Filing Taxes
tax refund –
the amount of money that one receives from the government if
one’s withholdings for the previous year were more than the amount that one
owed in taxes
* He had too much in withholdings last year, so this year he expects to receive a
big tax refund.
standard deduction –
an amount of money that people can subtract from their
total income when calculating their taxes if they do not want to specify all of their
expenses
* She asked her accountant whether it would be better to take the standard
deduction or to list all her expenses in detail.
to itemize –
to make a detailed list of something, especially of one’s expenses
on a tax form
* Business owners need to itemize all their business expenses.
medical expenses –
money spent on doctors’ appointments and medicine
* Avrumel had a lot of medical expenses when he got in a car accident.
charitable contributions –
money given to a not-for-profit organization, often to
help poor people, improve the environment, or conduct medical research
* Each year they make charitable contributions for AIDS research and forest
protection.
calculation –
the use of numbers in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
division to find the answer to a math problem or the price or amount of something
* A good bank employee needs to be able to make simple calculations very
quickly.
to crunch numbers –
to make calculations; to add, subtract, multiply, and divide
* I hope you enjoy crunching numbers all day if you’re thinking of becoming an
accountant,
refund check –
a piece of paper that one receives from the government and can
take to a bank to exchange for money in the amount of one’s tax return
* I wish we didn’t have to wait so long to receive our refund checks. I could really
use the extra money this month!
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English as a Second Language Podcast
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ESL Podcast 364 – Filing Taxes
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
1. Which of these are earnings?
a) Dividends.
b) Dependents.
c) Withholdings.
2. When will one receive a refund check?
a) When one’s withholdings are greater than one’s taxes.
b) When one’s standard deduction is greater than one’s itemized deduction.
c) When one’s medical expenses affect the calculations.
______________
WHAT ELSE DOES IT MEAN?
to look (something) over
The phrase “to look (something) over,” in this podcast, means to review or read
something and check it for accuracy: “Could you please look over my homework
and let me know if you find mistakes?” The phrase “to look down (one’s) nose at
(someone or something)” means to act as if one were better than another person
or thing: “When Jenni learned that we didn’t go to college, she looked down her
nose at us.” The phrase “to look the other way” means to ignore something, or to
see something that is wrong but not do anything about it: “Millions of people look
the other way when they see homeless people on the street.” Finally, the phrase
“to look no further” is used to say that one has exactly what another person
needs: “If you’d like to make more money, look no further! I have a business
opportunity for you.”
dependent
In this podcast, the word “dependent” means a person, usually a child, who
depends on another person for financial support, including food, housing, and
clothing: “The more dependents you have in your home, the more money you
need to make each year.” The word “dependent” also means not independent,
or needing something or someone for one’s happiness, success, health,
existence, or something else: “Rocheleh is dependent on public radio news
programs for learning about what is happening in the world.” Or, “High school
students’ ability to get into a good college is dependent on their grades, extra-
curricular activities, and essays.” The word “dependent” also means addicted to
drugs or alcohol: “Bernie wishes that his son weren’t dependent on drugs.”
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these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.
English as a Second Language Podcast
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ESL Podcast 364 – Filing Taxes
CULTURE NOTE
There is a popular joke in the United States: “Only two things are certain in life:
death and taxes.” Death and taxes seem to be the only things that people
cannot “escape” (get away) from. Americans pay many different kinds of taxes
and the “federal” (national) government uses the “tax revenues” (money received
from taxes) to “finance” (pay for) federal programs.
Almost all Americans pay “income taxes,” or taxes on the amount of money that
they earn each year. Income taxes are “assessed” (calculated and charged) as a
percentage of one’s income. In general, people who earn more money pay a
higher percentage of income tax than do people who earn less money. This is a
“progressive” tax. If people who earn little money pay more in taxes than people
who earn a lot of money, the tax is known as a “regressive tax.”
In all states except Oregon, Delaware, New Hampshire, Montana, and most of
Alaska, Americans pay a “sales tax,” which is assessed as a percentage on all
sales except for “groceries” (food that has to be prepared, not food in a
restaurant). This tax is often around six or seven percent and represents a
significant part of most Americans’ “budget” (a plan for how one will spend
money in a certain period of time).
“Property owners” (people who own land, houses, and/or buildings) have to pay
“property taxes,” too. The property that they own is “appraised,” meaning that a
professional “appraiser” examines the property and decides how much it is
“worth” (how much money something can be sold for). Then the property tax is
assessed as a percentage of that “appraised value.”
Nobody likes paying taxes, but almost everyone does. If you don’t, the “Internal
Revenue Service” (IRS; the U.S. agency that collects taxes) can make your life
“miserable” (very sad and uncomfortable).
______________
Comprehension Questions Correct Answers: 1 – a; 2 – a
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these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.
English as a Second Language Podcast
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ESL Podcast 364 – Filing Taxes
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 364: Filing Taxes.
This is ESL Podcast episode 364. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to
you from the beautiful City of Los Angeles, California, and the Center for
Educational Development.
You can go to our website at www.eslpod.com and download a Learning Guide
for this episode. The Learning Guides are designed to help you improve your
English even faster. They include all of the vocabulary, definitions, new sample
sentences so you can test your comprehension by reading them. We also have
comprehension questions, additional definitions of words that we talk about here
on the podcast; you’ll find cultural notes, and a complete transcript of everything
we say.
This episode is called “Filing Taxes.” “To file,” here, means to send in your
information to the government, and to pay the taxes that you must pay your state
and national government, here in the U.S. anyway. Let’s get started.
[start of dialogue]
Ricky: Aren’t you done with your taxes yet?
Shawn: No, not yet.
Ricky: Can I help?
Shawn: That would be great. I think I’m almost done, but it’d be great if you
could look it over. This is the first year I haven’t been exempt or filed an EZ tax
return.
Ricky: No problem. What are brothers for? Okay, you’ve entered your earnings,
including your salary and dividends. You have no dependents...
Shawn: I just hope I picked the right number of withholdings. I’d like to get a tax
refund, rather than have to pay.
Ricky: Well, you can take the standard deduction here, but I suggest itemizing
your medical expenses and your charitable contributions. It may make a big
difference in the calculations.
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These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2008). Posting of
these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.
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