Internal Revenue Service: Understanding Taxes

Details

Activity Description

The Internal Revenue Service has detailed lesson plans to guide your instruction from the introduction of a given income tax concept, through its development, to the lesson conclusion. Materials include printable PDFs for use in a traditional classroom setting, along with interactive online activities. The flexibility of this program allows you to customize this program to fit the learning needs of your students.

Preparation

1. Spend time exploring the site. There are many lesson plans (on the Teacher Site under Lesson Plans) covering various aspects of taxes.
2. Decide on needed topics and sequence. You can use their Custom Resource List to decide which lessons you want to use and mark them. After marking them you will need to print the list and save a copy. For our example we will use the first module Payroll Taxes and Federal Income Tax Withholding .
3. Review the various aspects of the lesson using the Table of Contents on this Module 1 page.
4. Activities are designed to be completed online. You can do this as an entire class or assign them to students to complete on their own, wherever they can use a computer
5. Download PDFs and PowerPoints to use in the classroom for discussions and as activities.
6. Determine any new vocabulary and plan to pre-teach.
7. Also spend time looking at the Student section of the site so you will understand what the students are being asked to complete.

How-To

1. Start a discussion about income taxes. Write down any student questions on the topic and hopefully they will be answered in the material.
2. Demonstrate the students section of the site if students will be working independently.
3. Proceed through the lesson using the materials here as a guide.
4. Hand out the Fact Sheet on Payroll Taxes. Pair students to address one of the four questions presented in the "Opening the Lesson" section.
5. Have students present the answers they have arrived at. Then discuss any incorrect answers.
6. Assign online interactive work such as simulations and assessments.

Teacher Tips

• To include beginning readers, mix reading levels, partner students with higher reading levels, read materials as a group, demonstrate activity as a whole group followed by small group work done together in class with your assistance, or finally pair students so they can assist one another.

More Ways

• Continue working through all the lessons until students have a good basic knowledge of income taxes.

Program Areas

• ABE: Adult Basic Education

Levels

• Intermediate
• High

Subjects

• Reading
  • Consumer Skills
  • Government

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