Shadowing Practice: avoiding taxes is easy, actually - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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So this is not going to be a crazy five hour long video
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that goes over every single tax law
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and how to escape taxes by transferring your corporation's intellectual property
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into an offshore British island subsidiary where you claim seagulls as dependents.
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Instead, all I want to do is show you how easy taxes really are for most people.
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And even if you're not old enough to have to pay taxes, it's still good to know because they don't teach it in school.
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Apparently, schools don't think teachers are qualified enough to teach taxes.
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Which is a shame, because when you get your first summer job as a lifeguard making $5,000 a year, and you have to pay taxes for the first time,
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it's nice to get advice from someone who makes a similar income.
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Either way, for most people in the USA, doing taxes is actually really easy.
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Nowadays, there's plenty of free IRS-approved websites like FreeTaxUSA, where you can just put all your info in, and you'll do all the calculations and submit all your taxes.
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So you really don't have to know any of the math.
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But it does help to understand what taxes are so that you know what you're doing.
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You owe income tax on money you make during the calendar year.
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So from January to December, something like 20% of all your income you have to pay to the government.
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And the payment is due by April of the next year.
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The actual percent you pay depends on how much you make and what state you live in.
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But again, there are websites that will do all that math for you.
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During the year, if you just mowed lawns or tutored middle school kids for cash and only made a few hundred dollars, you realistically aren't going to do taxes.
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But if you had a job, or did something else that made a lot of money, legally, you have to pay taxes.
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This is how you do it.
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If you worked a job during the year, chances are, instead of giving you your full paycheck every payday,
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your employer took out a percentage of every paycheck and gave it straight to the government as tax.
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So they're basically taking your money and using it to pay your taxes for you.
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This means that if your job pays $50,000 a year, your employer will look at your income and your situation and estimate what rate you should be taxed at.
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Let's say they estimate that your tax rate is 10%.
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In that case, they'll withhold 10% of your salary, which is $5,000, and they'll give that to the government,
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which leaves you with only forty five thousand this is actually pretty helpful
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because now you don't have to worry about setting aside part
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of your salary to pay taxes your job just does it for you
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so for most of the year you don't actually have to worry about paying taxes
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and once the year is over you still don't have to
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worry remember taxes aren't due until april the next year in
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fact to even do them you have to wait until January when you'll receive all your tax documents in the mail, sometimes through email.
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When you go through your mail, you'll usually know when it's important tax information, because on the front, it'll say important tax information.
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So usually, this will be a W-2 form from your job, or if you had multiple jobs, you'll get multiple W-2 forms,
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and sometimes other forms depending on your situation.
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But whatever forms you get, you still don't have to do anything with them yet.
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Just keep them safe and maybe scan them and store them on your computer just so you don't lose them.
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Then later in March or April when you're watching YouTube and you get an unskippable TurboTax ad, that probably means it's time to do your tax return.
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The goal of a tax return is to report all your income and then claim as many deductions and credits as possible.
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Deductions are expenses like your medical expenses or your business expenses
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that the government actually allows you to subtract from your total income.
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So even if your salary was $50,000, after deducting all these expenses, your actual taxable income might only be $35,000.
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Otherwise, if you don't qualify for that many deductions, everyone gets to claim something called the standard deduction,
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which is around $13,850 for single people like you.
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And you can just subtract this number from your total income to get your taxable income.
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The catch is, if you claim the standard deduction, you can't claim the individual ones, and vice versa.
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But the website you use to file your taxes will always make sure to calculate everything and claim whichever deduction is bigger.
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Once you've claimed all your deductions, the website will calculate how much tax you should have paid
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and compare it with how much tax your employer withheld from your paycheck during the year.
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In other words, it's going to tell you if you overpaid your taxes last year or if you underpaid.
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If you overpaid, then when you submit your tax return, the government will realize that they owe you money and they'll send you a refund.
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If you didn't pay enough, you'll have to send the government the rest of what you owe.
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And that's really it.
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As you can see, the hardest part about this is just knowing what deductions you can claim
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and what taxes apply to you.
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But as long as you just upload all your tax forms correctly and answer all the questions, The website does all the work for you,
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and anyone can do it for free or for very cheap.
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Accountants always want you to pay them money to do your taxes, but unless you got 10,000 forms in the mail, and you own 8 hedge funds,
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and you have crypto invested into the Somali Pirate Exchange, your taxes probably won't be that complicated, and you probably don't need an accountant.
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If I were you, I'd probably just use what the IRS recommends, which is freetaxusa.com slash free file.
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Once you're on there, you pretty much just upload pictures of all your forms, or you can manually enter the information.
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Then you just answer all these really specific but easy questions.
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If you get to something and you don't know if it applies to you, you can just Google it, and if that doesn't help, you can add Reddit to the end of the search.
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And you'll find someone who had the exact same question, and some NPC taxpayer replied to it with a perfect and simple explanation.
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Then, at the end, you just hit submit, and it'll send you a link where you can pay whatever taxes you still owe If instead,
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the government owes you, then you'll get a refund, and it'll come within a few weeks If you messed up something and accidentally claimed a deduction you weren't supposed to claim,
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and it was an honest mistake The IRS will just send
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you a polite letter telling you what you owe them
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If you committed tax fraud and failed to report millions of dollars of income
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they'll send you a letter nominating you to run for Congress.
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Now at this point you probably want to know
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if there are any tricks you can use during the year to pay less taxes legally and
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while you have to be pretty rich to start using some
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of the better methods there are a few decent ones that most people can do.
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For example many companies offer a retirement account like a 401k where you put in money to save for retirement
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and while the money's inside the account you use it to buy stocks.
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Hopefully the stocks will go up, and they probably will unless it's me buying them.
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Once you turn exactly 59 and a half years old, you can take out the money tax-free.
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However, there is a limit to how much you can put in the account every year.
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There's also stock losses.
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If you lose money trading crypto or stocks, then you can actually claim that as an expense, and it'll lower your taxable income.
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Another way to avoid taxes legally, and the way lots of billionaires do it, is by investing in stocks and holding onto them for more than a year,
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at which point they become long-term stocks.
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You don't get taxed on the profit you make from stocks until the year you actually sell the stock.
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And even then, the tax rates for these stocks are really low, sometimes even 0% for people with a low income.
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Another tip is that if you run your own business or side hustle, like a cleaning business, even if you make a lot of profit,
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you can reinvest that money back into the business and deduct it as an expense.
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For example, if you make $5,000 in profit vacuuming for people, you can use that money to buy a brand new state-of-the-art $5,000 vacuum.
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And because that's a business expense, your total profit is now zero, and you'll pay very little tax, if any.
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Plus, your new vacuum is going to get you way more customers.
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Lastly, some other things you might want to look into are a Roth IRA, a traditional IRA, a health savings account, or a college 529 plan.
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Now of course, you might be wondering, what if I'm not American?
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Well, in that case, some countries also have a tax return you have to fill out, like India.
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But most countries actually have a much simpler tax system where
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the government just tells you how much tax you have to pay.
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So why doesn't the US just do that?
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There's a common misconception that the US tax system is complicated on purpose so that companies like TurboTax can keep making money.
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And while that's part of it, the main reason is that the US government creates complex tax laws to encourage and discourage certain behaviors.
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For example, if the government wants people to use renewable energy, they'll give tax benefits to people who buy and use solar panels.
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They want people to buy homes and start businesses.
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They'll make tax laws to favor people who buy homes and start businesses.
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And if the government wants more people to subscribe, they'll make the button glow.
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Understanding Taxes and Learning English Through Real-World Dialogue
The video breaks down tax basics in a relatable, conversational tone, making it perfect for learn english with videos. It uses everyday language—like "mowed lawns," "paycheck," and "tax return"—that mirrors how native speakers discuss practical topics. This real-world context helps you grasp not just vocabulary, but also how to explain complex ideas simply, a key skill for IELTS speaking practice.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- "withhold a percentage": Useful for talking about deductions from pay.
- "standard deduction": A common term in financial conversations.
- "taxable income": Essential for discussing how taxes are calculated.
- "claim deductions/credits": Key when explaining ways to reduce tax bills.
- "tax return": A must-know phrase for anyone managing personal finances.
Step-by-Step Shadowing Guide for This Video
Shadowing (repeating speech aloud in real time) is a proven way to improve pronunciation and fluency. Here’s how to use this video for shadow speech practice:
- Listen and mimic intonation: The speaker uses casual tone shifts (e.g., "it's actually really easy"). Pause after short clips and repeat, focusing on rising/falling tones.
- Break down long sentences: Phrases like "the website will calculate how much tax you should have paid" can be split into chunks. Practice each part until you match the rhythm.
- Focus on connected speech: Notice how "you owe income tax" becomes "yuh-oh income tax" in fast speech. Use a shadowing app to slow down clips and replicate these links.
- Record and compare: After shadowing, record yourself and listen back. Check if your pronunciation of "deductions" or "withhold" matches the speaker’s. Adjust stress on syllables (e.g., de-DUC-tions, not DED-uc-tions).
- Practice in context: Use the phrases in role-plays (e.g., "I need to claim a standard deduction"). This builds confidence for real conversations, critical for improve english pronunciation and fluency.
By combining tax knowledge with language practice, you’ll master practical vocabulary while honing speaking skills—all in one go.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.