PERSONAL FINANCE
In a
you usually have a
, which is one where you pay in your
and then
money to pay your everyday
. The bank sends you a regular
telling you how much money is in your account. You may also have a
where you
any extra money that you have and only take the money out when you want to
it
something special. You usually try to avoid having an
or you end up paying a lot of
. If your account is
, you can be said to be
(as opposed to
or
).
Sometimes the bank may
you money - this is called a
. If the bank lends you money to buy a house, this is called a
.
When you buy (or, more formally,
) something in a shop, you usually pay for it
, but sometimes you buy
. Sometimes you may be offered a discount or a
on something you buy in a shop. You are often offered a discount if you buy
. It is not usual to
prices in a British shop, as it is in, say, a Turkish market. If you want to return something which you have bought in ashop, you may be given a
, i.e., your money will be returned, provided you have a
.
The money you pay for services, e.g., to a school or a lawyer, is usually called a
or
; the money paid for a journey is a
. If you buy something that you feel was very good value, it's a
. If you feel that it is definitely not worth what you paid for it, then you call it a
(very colloquial).
PUBLIC FINANCE
The government collects money from citezens through
. Income tax is the tax collected on
and
.
or excise duties have to be paid on
imported from other countries.
or value added tax is paid on goods or
when they are
. Companies pay a corporation tax on their
. If you pay too much tax, you should be given some money back, a
.
The government also sometimes pays out money to people in need, e.g.,
(also known informally as
),
and
.
Every country has its own special
. Every day the
are published and you can discover, for example, how many
there are currently
the
.
A company may sell
to members of the public, who are then said to have
that company. They should be paid a regular
on their investment, depending on the
made by the company.
* The above text extract is taken from
McCarthy, M. & O'Dell, F. (1994) English Vocabulary in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (p.112). The present exercise was created by Ana Frankenberg-Garcia for New Techonologies in ELT using the
HotPotatoes tool.