Tax BLUNDER

This week the British financial press and news reports have been full of new of a scandal over a blunder involving personal taxation. It appears that the Inland Revenue, the organization responsible for collecting taxes, has made a huge mistake when collecting income tax from millions of people. As you can imagine this has caused huge worries to ordinary people as the government is not informing everyone who is affected immediately but will be sending out letters over a period of a few months so the tension is rising.
Many organizations have been devising template letters for people to send to the Inland Revenue when they are asked to pay back money.
The positive side of this is that quite a lot of people will be getting refunds for over paid money.
Your tasks for this week-
Please read the article and then do the quiz which will follow in the next posting.
Then I would like you to do two pieces of writing and ask your teacher to mark them for you. Or send them to me as comments on this blog and I will mark them for you.
Writing task one.
You have received a letter from the tax authorities saying that they made a blunder and you owe them money. Pick one of the templates which you can find by following this link and use it to write a letter to the tax man.

Writing task two
You have received a refund of £500.00 write an email to your best friend telling them how you will spend the money.

British Lifestyle report

Our word or phrase, of the week this week is disposable income. The guardian.co.uk article I have chosen explains what is happening on the British High Street and how consumers are choosing to spend their money at the moment.
Underwear, alcohol, pets and beauty treatments top the list, are these products important in your country too? Discuss how people in your country spend their disposable income.
Why is disposable income so important to economists? Discuss with your teacher and class.
Does the information in this article fit with your understanding of British Lifestyle ? Discuss with a colleague.
Have people in your class changed their holiday patterns because of the recession?
Write a short questionnaire, ask your class mates your questions and then prepare a report on this topic; do not mention names in the report, then give the report to your teacher for checking.

Pound vs dollar

Pound vs dollar » online test

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Budget 2010: Tough but unfair-Guardian 24.06.10

Last week the press in the UK was full of budget speculation, so my word of the week for last week is budget. There has been much press attention to this topic since the details were officially released on Tuesday and pages of press comment have been written. Our article for this week is one of the shorter ones you will be pleased to know.
Many people have opinion on the budget and here is the Guardian opinion from today. Budget 2010: Tough but unfair.

If you want more information on the British Budget follow some of the links on this page from the Guardian.

This week's questions for this article.

1. Who did chancellor George Osborne say would be worst affected by the budget?
2. Do the researchers quoted in this article agree? Why/Why Not?
3. In the UK VAT will rise to 20% in January 2011. Compare this level of VAT with the equivalent tax in your country. Write a note to your teacher explaining the comparison. (40 words limit.)
4. Do you think VAT a fair tax to increase at a time of recession? Prepare a short presentation to present to your class on this topic. 1-2 minutes only.