Money, Money, Money - and Taxes!

Date: 19th Jun 2019 @ 3:47pm

On Tuesday we had an interesting visit from HMRC and learnt about who pays taxes, what the taxes pay for in the country and some weird facts about taxes! We learnt that people who earn over £12,500 pay 20% of their wages as tax, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer decides how to spend. We learnt that most of the money is spent on health, education, the armed forces with some being spent on cultural developments and protecting the environment. 

Weird Facts - In the olden days there used to be taxes on windows so people bricked them up and in Russia they had a beard tax! McVities also took HMRC to the High Court to prove that Jaffa Cakes were a cake because they went stale instead of soft like a biscuit. 

We then thought about our own values and spending and how we are influenced to spend or save money. After discussing our choices, we thought about the impact of our spending on other people in the world and the environment, e.g. single use plastics and cheap clothes!