Looking for good federal income tax lessons for high school students? I’ve got what you need to teach students about W-2s, tax tables, Form 1040, and more without the stress.
If you’ve read many posts on this blog, you know my mission is to rid all math classrooms of the dreaded ‘When will I ever have to learn this?’. When I taught high school, that question was usually echoed by someone in the back of the room saying, ‘Yeah, why can’t you teach us how to do taxes or something useful?’.
Well… be careful what you ask for, kids.
Income taxes can be an overwhelming topic to understand, let alone teach to others. It’s a complicated topic, and honestly, a lot of students are intimidated by it. (And a lot of adults are too.) Obviously, most kids are going to have pretty simple tax returns when they start their first job, so I wanted to start by giving students practical experience filling out tax forms by hand using simple scenarios.
Why teach them to fill out forms by hand?
Yes, there are increasingly more options available each year for filing your taxes online for free. These are great tools for adults. But here’s the problem with just saying, ‘You don’t need to learn that – you can file online for free.’ Computers can make mistakes. If they don’t have the basic knowledge of how taxes are being calculated, they’ll be unable to spot and fix errors.
Hiring an accountant is another option, but again, students should be able to look at their prepared returns and make sure they look accurate.
Practicing filling out forms by hand gives students an understanding of how their taxes are calculated, so the process does not seem as intimidating or mysterious when they are adults.
The basic topics students need to know
I’ve found that teaching students everything they need to know to file a basic return (filling out the forms by hand, of course) takes about a week. This is assuming you have the standard 50-60 minute class periods.
Here’s what they need to know:
- What is a W-2, and what information does it provide?
- What’s the difference between a standard deduction and an itemized deduction, and how do you know which one you should use?
- How do you read a tax table?
- How do you fill out the Form 1040?
If you don’t have a week, I recommend just focusing on the W-2. You can do this in a day or two, and it will still provide good information for students. You can find my resources for just focusing on the W-2 here.
Ready to try this out in your classroom?
If you’re ready to teach these skills in your classroom, you can find all the resources you need for your classroom here.
As I mentioned above, this should take about a week of 50-60 minute class periods. All lessons use real IRS tax forms and I update each resource in January when the new tax forms become available. You’ll be able to re-download the unit each year to get the updates at no cost to you.
Students will gain experience filling out the tax forms using realistic W-2s.
If you’re feeling intimidated by teaching this, please don’t be! I have everything laid out with explanations and Google Slides to help you teach this topic.
Looking for more resources?
I have a FREE reference sheet for students to use when throughout this unit available in my Freebie Library. If you don’t already have the link, please enter your email address below, and I’ll send you the link!
