ESL Podcast 364 - Filing Taxes
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.
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!