Taxation

Please read the article and take a note of any new vocabulary:

In 1789 Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the USA, wrote in a letter to a colleague that, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” In these modern times of world economic crisis tax has once again become a hotly debated topic for government, business and workers all over the world. There are many different taxes and many different theories of taxation and how to implement them. Governments need revenue to pay for things like Defense and Health Care and tax is the principal source of this revenue. Let’s have a look at some of them.

Taxes

There are several taxes which directly affect us and the most important of these is the tax on what we earn sometimes known as Income Tax. Usually there is an amount of our salary that we can earn which is not subject to taxation this is sometimes called the Personal Allowance. Everything that we earn over that amount is taxed at a certain tax rate. The government sets the level of Personal Allowance and the tax rate as part of its Fiscal Policy and either the companies that we work for deduct the tax and give it to the government or we arrange to pay the tax ourselves.

Another of the most important taxes is Social Security. In most countries this is paid by workers to the state to pay for state medical services and unemployment benefits if we should lose our jobs. Council Tax is paid to local government to help pay for street lighting, rubbish collection and other local services. One of the most controversial taxes is the tax on the things that we buy called Value Added Tax (VAT) in the UK. This tax is added to things ranging from clothes to TVs and even some food items. Even though it is unpopular with the people it remains popular with governments.

Businesses pay taxes too. Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax are probably the biggest that they pay. Many big corporations try to negotiate with governments to pay less tax with the threat of withdrawing from the country and moving to another the principal form of leverage that they use.

Tax Systems

The most common system of taxation in the western world isProgressive Taxation. This system taxes people more or less depending on their relative wealth. Therefore poorer people pay less than rich people and companies with smaller profits pay less than companies with big profits. Socialist, or left-wing, governments tend to set their progressive tax rates at the more extreme ends of the scale so that poorer people pay very little in tax and the very rich pay a lot. Conservative, or right-wing, governments tend to set their tax rates lower so that the poorer workers still contribute something and the richer workers pay more but not very much more. Conservatives argue that setting tax rates very high for the rich only encourages tax avoidance and inhibits the production of wealth thereby reducing the amount of tax collected by the government.

Conservatives cite the economist Arthur Laffer who drew a diagram showing how high taxation reduces economic activity and increases tax avoidance. This diagram is called the “Laffer Curve” and this system of taxation has been adopted by conservative governments all over the world. Left-wing economists argue that it is morally right to subject the rich to high taxes especially now in these times of crisis and austerity. There is a fierce debate in the European Union over which system should be employed in its member countries. Some countries have accused Greece and Italy of setting Personal Allowances too high and having systems that encourage tax avoidance. Meanwhile northern countries, like Germany and the UK, are accused of letting high earners pay too little tax. Whatever the rights and wrongs of taxation, the debate is sure to continue.

Discussion

1. Do you agree with the socialist economists who say that the rich have a moral obligation to pay a high rate of tax?
2. What are the Income Tax and Personal Allowance rates in your country?
3. Are you happy with your country’s Fiscal Policy?
4. Is tax avoidance common in your country?
5. Do you think that your government spends its tax revenue wisely?

A Spaniard in London

A Spanish graduate who won three degrees has found the only job available to him is cleaning the bathrooms in a London cafe. Benjamin Serra Bosch, 25, received distinctions for his academic work in journalism and PR but has not be able to find qualified work in Spain or his new home country.

In a frustrated online rant, he outlines the hopeless situation for thousands of young Spaniards like himself who are forced to go abroad to take on jobs for which they are overqualified.

He has two Bachelor degrees, one in Journalism and Advertising and another in Public Relations from the prestigious private CEU Cardenal Herrera University.  He also has a Master's degree in Community Management from the IEBS Business School.  Yet he was not able to find employment in Spain, and after a six-month internship in London, he took a job at a ‘well-known coffee chain’ as a waiter.

‘I received a distinction for both my degrees and now I clean shit in a foreign country,’ he writes.

‘I've been working in a well known café chain in London since May. And after five months working there, today for the first time I saw it clearly.

‘I clean toilets. My thought was “I received distinctions in my two degrees and I clean other peoples shit in a country that isn't my own.” Well, I also make coffees, wipe tables and wash up cups.’

 

The reaction from other young Spaniards, did not take long. Since Friday, his post has been shared over 1,500 times on Facebook alone, with thousands of comments from others in his situation.

Thousands have complained of the hopeless situation for many young people in Spain, where unemployment for under-25s reached 56 per cent in August.

The Valencia native insists in his post that he is not ashamed of working a job he is overqualified for, but rather that, like many others of his generation, he was forced to go abroad to get it as a result of the high unemployment in Spain.

‘I'm not ashamed of what I do. Cleaning is a very worthy job, What embarrasses me is having to do it because no one has given me an opportunity in Spain. There are many Spaniards like me especially in London.

‘I thought I deserved better after so much effort in my academic life. Apparently I was wrong.’

'I know this has transpired because many of us [young Spaniards] find ourselves in the same situation or are parents who have struggled to prepare their children and identify with my situation. Or simply because there are people who see that Spain has spent years living in an untenable position. 

'I am an ordinary person, not a public figure. I never wanted to be the hero of the stories, I just want to tell them.'

All words from The Daily Mail online in the UK

Discussion:

Please give a short summary of the article.

What is your reaction to this article?

Do you know any young people in a similar situation?

Could you live and work abroad?

Would you be willing to clean toilets for a living?

Do you think the situation is improving?

Who do you blame for this situation?

Words Ending With -ED

Many learners of English have difficulty pronouncing words that end with -ED but there is a simple rule to follow:

Words that end with either -TED or -DED have an extra syllable which is pronounced like "-id". For example: "Test" has one syllable, "Tested" has 2 syllables and is pronounced "Test-id". In the same way "Extend" has 2 syllables "Ex" and "tend", however "Extended" has 3 syllables and is pronounced "Ex-tend-id". This rule is apt for all words that end with either -TED or -DED, all other endings have no extra syllable and the end sounds like a hard "d" sound. So for example: "Stop" has one syllable and "stopped" also has one syllable and this word is pronounced "Stopd". Similarly "Dislike" has two syllables and "Disliked" also has two syllables and is pronounced "Dislikd". The extra syllable "-id" sound is only added to words ending with -TED or -DED, simple!

Now say these words with the extra -id sound at the end: Commanded, hated, handed, stated, relegated, pretended, regulated.
And now these words with the hard -d sound at the end: Guessed, believed, commenced, relaxed, attacked, travelled, banned.

Now read the short story and look at the words which end with -ED and work out which ending they have, then prepare to read the story to your teacher:

James Bond hid behind the curtain, he realised that he would soon be discovered so he tested the safety catch on his pistol, lifted the torch from the floor and decided on his escape plan. Sirco entered the room and switched on the light, he raised his gun, aimed at the curtain and fired. He ran to the curtain and pulled it open but there was no-one there. The window had been opened and Bond had escaped. He followed him out of the window and looked all around for signs of the British agent but could see none. He guessed that Bond would have headed towards the wood store and started to run in that direction. When he got there he kicked the door in and rolled into the middle of the store but he was all alone....

Mad World

Before you watch the video look up these phrasal verbs in the dictionary:

To wear out (past: worn out), to fill up (gerund: filling up).

Now watch the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NAr5_3luo

1. Do you know this song? Do you like British pop music?
2. What emotions did you feel when you watched the video?
3. Explain the concept of this song - what message does it give?
4. What message does the video give - is it the same message as the song lyrics? Explain your answer.
5. What does your country do to help fight child poverty and aid underprivileged children?
6. What role does the church / religion have in helping poor children? What do you think of their efforts?
7. How does the average person in your country respond to charity appeals? 

8. Do you think your country is a charitable nation? Explain your answer.

MAD WORLD (lyrics)

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you,
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very, very
Mad world, mad world

Every three seconds the world loses a child. Your donation can help to stop this. Visit internationalchildrensfund.com.

Adios siesta?

Before you read the article, look up these words in the dictionary: Prevail, disjointed, counterparts.

It's 10.30am, and Fernando, a civil servant in his late 40s, sits down to a cafe con leche, the sports pages and a cigarette in Madrid's Plaza del Rey. At work since 9am, he is taking his routine morning break. It's a ritual you see everywhere across the capital: friends and colleagues gather in the mid-morning, coffees are ordered, noisy conversation ensues, and 20 minutes later they're back to work. But these leisurely coffee breaks may soon come to an end, following a vote by a parliamentary commission on Thursday recommending that Spain turn its clocks back an hour and introduce more regular working days, starting at 9am and ending at 5pm.

The cliché of Spain's late-rising, long lunches and afternoon siestas may prevail in the mind of foreigners, but the reality for most Spanish workers is a long and disjointed day.

"I'm normally in the office until about 8pm," said Fernando, explaining the long hours worked by the average Spaniard. "I could take two hours for lunch, but mostly I just have an hour, and often eat at my desk. I certainly don't take a siesta."

In part, Spain's chaotic working hours come down to a historical anomaly. In 1942, Spain's dictator, General Francisco Franco, changed the country's time zone to coincide with Germany's in an act of solidarity with his fascist ally. And it has never gone back.

"Because of a great historical error, in Spain we eat at 2pm, and we don't have dinner until 9pm, but according to the position of the sun, we eat at the same time as the rest of Europe: 1pm and 8pm," explained Professor Nuria Chinchilla, director of the International Centre for Work and Family at the IESE Business School. "We are living with 71 years of jet-lag, and it's unsustainable.

"If we eat at 2pm, and dine at 9pm, then logically we ought to start work at 10am. But we don't do that, we start earlier, so our mornings are far too long. That's why people need a coffee break, because they can't wait that long to eat. So we lose time in the morning and have to work even longer in the evening." She believes that changing Spain's time zone, combined with a more rational 9-5 working day, would be of huge benefit, and cost nothing.

"We should be starting between 7.30am and 9am and never finishing work later than 6pm. Half an hour, or an hour, is more than enough to time to eat a healthy lunch, and not as so often happens here in Spain two hours, three hours," said Buqueras. "The siesta has to end! At most, you might need 10 or 12 minutes rest after lunch." And, anyway, most Spaniards don't have a nap after lunch, even if their working day permits them to take one, he said.

Another thing that needs to change is late-night prime-time TV, said Buqueras. "In England, the largest TV audience is at 7 or 8pm, but in Spain, it's 10pm. Because at 8pm in Spain, barely 50% of the population is at home, and you have to wait until 10pm to find that number of people at home, thus guaranteeing the viewing figures needed for prime time. Sometimes football matches don't kick off until 11pm!" he said.

All of this means people go to bed far later than they should and get less sleep than they need. Studies suggest Spaniards sleep an hour less than the rest of Europe, which means more accidents at work, less efficiency, and more children missing school. Additionally they work longer hours than their German and British counterparts, but are much less efficient.

But many believe it will take more than a change of the clock to bring Spain into line with the rest of Europe. Elver Christine Laanen, 24, is from the Netherlands but works at a healthcare company in Madrid. "I've had to get used to eating lunch at 1.30pm, when I would like to eat at 12pm. And now I make sure I don't eat a very big dinner, because I don't think it's that healthy to eat so much just before you go to bed." Prof Chinchilla understands that "change is always hard, because people don't realise the damage they are doing to themselves with their traditions".

In the square, as Fernando finished his coffee and prepared to go back to the office, he agreed that a change of culture would not be easy. "We're Spaniards, and this is how we are. I'm not sure we'll like it if they impose these changes on us from above."

All words from The Guardian newspaper in the UK

Give a short summary of the article.

Is there anything you don't understand in the article?

What is your opinion of the article?
Give a summary of your working day. At what time do you wake up? Start work? Have lunch? Etc

What is the culture in your country?

Do you think the culture in your country is good for productivity?

Is it hard to change culture in society?

The Top 20 Movies of All Time

Here is a list of the top 20 movies of all time by IMDb website:

1.	9.2	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)	1,030,470
2.	9.2	The Godfather (1972)	725,295
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)	469,770
4.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)	797,837
5.	8.9	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)	309,817
6.	8.9	The Dark Knight (2008)	1,005,413
7.	8.9	12 Angry Men (1957)	252,778
8.	8.9	Schindler's List (1993)	523,547
9.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)	731,097
10.	8.8	Fight Club (1999)	782,213
11.	8.8	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)	498,951
12.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)	755,220
13.	8.7	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	428,351
14.	8.7	Inception (2010)	813,539
15.	8.7	Goodfellas (1990)	446,288
16.	8.7	Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)	561,412
17.	8.7	Seven Samurai (1954)	155,816
18.	8.7	Forrest Gump (1994)	681,534
19.	8.7	The Matrix (1999)	738,411
20.	8.7	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)	655,940

How many of the movies have you seen?
How often do you watch movies?
Do you agree with the list?
Why do you think that there are no comedies, war movies and only one western on the list?
What movies do you think should be in the list?
What movie genre is your favourite?
All of the movies except Seven Samurai are English language movies, do you think your country produces movies that should be on this list?