Description
What our Taxes lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Taxes teaches students about the history and origin of taxes and why the federal and state governments collect them. They will also discover what types of things are taxed and what those taxes help pay for in society. They will also learn to apply what they learn from this lesson to real world applications. This lesson is for students in 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the blue box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. The supplies you will need for this lesson are menus from restaurants, calculators, construction paper, glue, and scissors.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. The objective of the lesson is to connect real-life situations to math concepts. Other options for this lesson are to invite a representative from your local government or another tax office to speak to the students about how tax dollars are used in their community. A second option is to provide students with copies of pay stubs that show the taxes deducted from their earnings, and then explain the importance of each section to the services they provide in their community. For example, Medicare Taxes provide supplemental income to seniors, like their grandparents.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
TAXES LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
The Taxes lesson plan includes two content pages. Taxes are extra money added to the things we buy or the money we earn. This money is collected by the government to help pay for things like roads, schools, parks, police officers, and firefighters. People have been paying taxes for a very long time—thousands of years! A long time ago, people paid taxes on things like cooking oil, tea, and even newspapers. Some unfair taxes even caused big protests and wars—like the American Revolution.
Types of Taxes
In the United States, there are many kinds of taxes. Some of the most common are sales, income, social security, property, medicare, and corporate taxes. With sales tax, this is the extra money you pay when you buy something in a store. It’s added to the price you see on the item. For example, if something costs $1.00 and the sales tax is 5%, you will pay $1.05. Some things, like food and clothes, might not have sales tax in some states. When adults work and earn money, they pay a part of what they earn to the government as income tax. The more money someone earns, the more they might pay.
Social security is the tax taken from a person’s paycheck to help them when they retire or stop working. When people get older, usually after age 62, they get monthly checks from this money. If someone owns a house, land, car, or even a business, they may have to pay property taxes based on how much those things are worth. Medicare tax comes out of paychecks to help pay for healthcare for people over age 65. And corporate tax is what businesses pay from their profit. Other taxes include gift tax, taxes on things brought into the country, or money left to someone when a person dies.
Who Collects Taxes?
In the US, a group called the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) collects taxes for the federal government. States and cities also collect taxes. Sometimes, people pay too much in taxes. When that happens, they get some money back, called a refund. Sometimes, adults can use deductions to lower the amount of taxes they owe. For example, if they gave money to a charity or had big medical bills, they might pay less in taxes.
Taxes help pay for many things we all use, such as roads and bridges, public schools, police and fire departments, and military. Without taxes, we wouldn’t have many of the things that help our towns and country work. People don’t always agree about taxes. Some think rich people should pay more. Others think everyone should pay the same percent, no matter how much they earn. This debate has been going on for a long time.
TAXES LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Taxes lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
DO THE MATH PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet asks students to find four things they want to buy. Students will draw a picture of each item in the four boxes. They will calculate the price with tax using the equations below the pictures.
BE THE TAX COLLECTOR ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity worksheet, students will build on what they did in the practice. The teacher will choose a group of students to become “IRS Agents” or “Government Workers.” Students will follow the steps on the page to simulate paying taxes on the items they bought in the practice.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Students will reflect on what they believe about taxes during the homework assignment. They will read two statements, one saying that everyone should pay the same percent of taxes and the other that those who make more money should pay more in taxes. Students will come up with some simple arguments in support of the statement they agree with. Then they will write a letter to the governor of their state about the subject.
