New year, new tax forms! This year’s updates to the Filing Federal Income Taxes Unit are now available!
This year brings lots of new changes, so I’ve listed them below. The biggest change this year is the replacement of Lesson 2 with a new lesson on Deductions & Credits. Read more about this below!
A few IRS changes you need to know
Standard Deduction Increased
The 2025 standard deduction amounts have increased to $15,750 for single taxpayers and to $31,500 for married taxpayers filing jointly.
Updated Tax Tables
As usual, the tax tables have been adjusted for inflation and differ slightly from 2024.
Updates to the Taxes Unit
New Practice Worksheet in Lesson 1
The Understanding the Form W-2 lesson now has an additional practice worksheet! This worksheet provides extra practice on the skills taught in Lesson 1. It’s not required for the unit, but definitely helpful if you feel your students need a little more practice before moving on.
Major Updates to Lesson 2
If you read nothing else in this post – read this! Lesson 2 (previously called Itemizing vs. the Standard Deduction) has been replaced with a new lesson, Deductions and Credits.
I made the decision to replace this lesson for a couple of reasons. There are many new updates coming to the Schedule A in 2026 due to new tax laws surrounding charitable contributions. I’m worried that these changes may make the Schedule A more complicated and harder for high school students to complete by hand.
The second reason is that the IRS states that about 9 in 10 taxpayers use the standard deduction. Because the Schedule A is becoming more complicated, and fewer people are using it, I decided it might be more beneficial for students to learn about the differences between deductions and credits instead of learning how to itemize deductions.
The new Lesson 2 now teaches students about the differences between deductions and credits and how they both work to lower a person’s taxes in different ways.
New Tax Table BINGO Game in Lesson 3
Lesson 3 (Reading Tax Tables) now includes a fun bingo game for extra practice! The game is purely for additional practice using the tax tables, so it could be left out if you don’t have the time. I hope your students enjoy it!
Changes to Lesson 4
Because Lesson 2 no longer teaches students how to use the Schedule A, the Schedule A has been removed from this lesson (Completing the Form 1040). Instead, some taxpayers in this lesson now have children that qualify for a Child Tax Credit. Some taxpayers also now have taxable interest that will be added to their income. Instructions for how to do this are included in the Google Slides for this lesson.
New Alternative to Scavenger Hunt Review
The scavenger hunt has been updated and included as usual; however, an alternative worksheet assignment is also now available. The worksheet contains the same questions as the scavenger hunt, but can be used as an alternative assignment for students who are absent or unable to move around the classroom.
How to Access Your Update
You can download the updated unit from the site where you made your purchase.
- TPT Purchases: Your update can be downloaded from your My Purchases page.
- CKMath Website Purchases: Your update can be downloaded from your account page.
This unit update is also part of the Understanding Personal Finance Curriculum. You can redownload the curriculum with the updated unit using either of the links above.
Haven’t purchased this unit yet?
Interested in purchasing this unit for your classroom? You can find all the details here. Updates are included with your purchase and are released each year in January when new tax forms are released.
