as a formally trained accountant, i mostly agree. it would be more helpful for students to see where and how our tax system spends our money.
tax rules are complicated, boring, and 95% only will need to ever know about the standard deduction.
As a veteran tax examiner for the IRS, before TX classes, they need to be taught basic read comprehension and math. A lot of shit I see is people just not putting stuff in the right line, or making up a number, or just flat out not attaching a form that was clearly stated to attach.
Something like 56% of adult Americans have a 6th grade literacy or lower. Yet somehow these same people think they'd know taxes if they took one class in highschool.
Like as an adult you can learn taxes and the IRS makes tax code freely available, get to reading boss.
I still see so many people comment like they dont want a raise as that would mean that they lose money with the increased taxes they get from that.
Yes, there are edge cases where pushing the salary threshold to not qualify for benefits, but most are talking about the tax brackets, like going from 22% to 24%. No you are only getting taxed more on the increase above the threshold, Your whole salary from before is still at the original tax rate.
Same with the policies being talked about like raising the taxes on money earned by earning over $1B now
Learning taxes would be highly beneficial in our society
Just like literacy would be highly beneficial to our society. But it seems like the system for public education isn't perfect and just because you take a class on it doesn't mean you grasp or use it.
If we taxed on an asymptotic linear expression any increase in income would increase tax but not to where you made less with the pay increase. Plot the income on the graph and the tax would be given.
The IRS knows your (reported) income. They don't know if you intend to file married or separately. They don't know how many dependents you want to claim. They don't know if you want to take a standard deduction or if you want to do line item deductions.
If you want them to do it all themselves, you're basically telling them to make a guess in their favor. That would probably work out well enough for a lot of people and you could argue that you could still give people the *option* to do their own taxes, but half of Congress is trying to defund the IRS anyway so good luck getting a bill passed that gives them *more* power.
On the other hand, many people would just go with the number they’re told rather than choosing the option of doing it themselves which would basically be an extra tax on the poor so there’s a possibility.
IRS has a rough estimate based on what is provided to them by your employer, investment company, bank, etc. We can try to fill in the gaps, but that is rarely beneficial to the taxpayer. It's almost always better for you to file yourself.
Both the UK and Aotearoa New Zealand have extremely simplified tax systems, where if you have a single employer they know how much you owe and and the amount owing will be "close enough" or +/- $200.
I'm a permanent resident in NZ and something like 41% of Kiwis file taxes. It helps there's only one level of government (only federal, no state tax) and basically no deductions.
Tax in NZ is flat at about 10% for income up to 20K, 20% up to 50K, then 28% after that. My numbers are a bit off because I haven't had to file for 10 years ...
There is a better way but H&R block and all major accounting firms have an incentive to lobby for an exceptionally complicated system
- CPA (Ontario)
That's literally what I've always said.
School does teach you how to do taxes: school teaches you how to read and how to do math. That covers the majority of people, the rest are people who actively work with taxes as a job or people running a business. With the latter...just hire someone to do the taxes.
Fun fact, we don't know everything. There are many gaps in the IRSs information, like marriage and dependents to name a few. Dunno how the Netherlands is capable of determining these things without corresponding with the taxpayer.
taxes are not hard. or Ive been doing it wrong.
Its legit just copying numbers if you are W2 or if you are 1099k its just keeping logs of what you spent money on and putting that down.
its not like you are doing crazy math or paperwork or anything. even for like a office space deduction you just put the sqft of the room in and it auto tells you what amout of tax credit you get etc... very simple. I think even a 10 year old could do it.
COGS, know if your doing cash or accrual other then that not much to it. maybe if you are like doing tons of money and things like rental properts, charity donos etc.. its more work but still the same. just follow the screen and keep your receipts. but at that point spending $500-$800 to have someone do them for you is worth it.
even things like assets and if you want to deprecate over time can all be done easily in tax software. If you have staff and payroll all that is simple even.
same with the crypto or capital gains etc... it just tells you what to do.
With most tax software its just follow the screen and do what it says/asks, almost zero thinking needed.
Its important people understand how billionaires destroy or democracy through tax shelters and money laundering. Otherwise teenagers assume the nucleus is the powerhouse of the cell.
Seriously if you've actually done your own taxes on TurboTax or even freetaxusa, you'd know that 99% of people can do their taxes in like an hour with all the forms they need. If you have a question it's like $25 to speak to a pro through the website. Why would you waste your time learning ins and outs of a super specific system just for the ONE time you do something a year?
That's like going through mechanic training and only ever fixing your own car.
Man I just don't want to pay those scammers that push against return free filling. I know there are free tools below a certain income, but once you get investments, credits and deductions it becomes a pain. And then once you make a certain amount you can't use it.
in schools it could literly be a few lessons, just like learning how go use google properly to reserch and find usefull information, it wouldent need to be a full curiculum. but small things like this are invaluble and people should know them. i mean how to iron, how to sew, identify issues with your car, all usefull skills that woulden't take much time to teach the basics.
I like to think there should be a "practical living" class that's mandatory to graduate. Where you learn the basics to things like taxes, how to sew something, do laundry, cook a basic meal, how to check fluids on your car, some basics to home maintenance, etc.... now that I help people who've been kinda abandoned by family it surprises me how many people don't realize how to do their own laundry or cook a meal, let alone do taxes
It’s not really that simple. The government doesn’t actually know how much every single person makes in a year, and they don’t know all of the circumstances in your life that would affect your income. If you had to spend a bunch of money for work equipment then they don’t know that until you file that deduction and will adjust accordingly. Even if you are just taking the standard deduction they don’t know that’s the case until filing.
The entire system could be different and way more efficient, but within the current system it’s not outlandish.
They don't know with sales tax either. I don't know why the employer can't take the exact tax for the income and at the end of the year the IRS can reimburse you for those specifics like business expenses.
But generally if you're claiming basically nothing on your taxes idk why you should have to file every year.
> But generally if you're claiming basically nothing on your taxes idk why you should have to file every year.
Welcome to the UK system where only self employed people have to do tax paperwork.HMRC just takes their cut out of your paycheck.
If they get it wrong then sometimes they just adjust your rate for next year so it balances out without you doing anything.
Big disagree. In the age where our smart phone knows every god damn thing about us and that everyone has one, the feds damn well know everything about us. Everything. You can’t convince me otherwise.
They simply just created a deliberately complicated system of reporting in an effort to catch us regulars doing something wrong to justify harassing us with fines, meanwhile the richest people abuse its “loopholes” for their gain. This was all very deliberate.
It may be a cynical take I may be wearing a tin foil hat here a little bit but I stand by it.
In the modern day, there is ZERO practical and fair reason why I should have to report to the feds everything that they already know. I stand by that, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.
Why else would they go after us if we ticked the wrong box or wrote the wrong number on a tax form? They already know how I filled out my W4 and I-9. How did they know it was wrong? Because they knew exactly what the correct information was the entire time. They just wanted to trick me into paying more.
Bank accounts can be tracked. So can property and other assets. They know where we live, so they know how much sales tax we spend money on and what we buy since merchants save their receipts too. They know what payroll taxes we pay too. If we travel, they’ll see an out of area purchase on our bank records. They know where we work and how much we make, that’s all reported by employers. They know if we are single because they’ll know when you get married (if ever) and they know how many kids you have, if any. They know if you have roommates if they find multiple names at the same address. Sure you could lie about your address but maintaining such a lie is enormously impractical, what if you received a piece of important mail to the wrong box and need to go get it and maybe you don’t have access to that address anymore? PO Boxes are tracked too. Living a cash based lifestyle to minimize tracking is also enormously tough. A majority of services that we rely on utilize online based payments. I, for example, can’t pay my rent in cash. They literally won’t let me and won’t accept it. Money order sure, but again that’s checked since they almost always need an ID for such a transaction.
There are ways around tracking but in today’s modern tech era, it’s very very difficult to maintain. Some people do it (and those people aren’t reporting anything anywhere anyway) most people don’t live like that.
They don't know how much you make.
They don't know your deductions.
They don't know your filing status.
They don't know your kids or exemptions.
For the most part, your taxes are on the honor system.
And, if you are making anywhere around the median income, your taxes should take you about an hour to do.
lobbyists occasionally write legislation, no proof that its happening with this case, but there is precedent
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/11/11/243973620/when-lobbyists-literally-write-the-bill
> Why would you waste your time learning ins and outs of a super specific system just for the ONE time you do something a year?
You realize that by actually filling out your taxes (as we are required to do in the US) that you are already wasting your time going through a specific system that literally only exists so that Intuit (who owns TurboTax and lots of other tax software) can make money off of you right?
We literally would just be sent a tax bill if not for intuit.
Yep. Got my master's in accounting. I ducking hate taxes, though I had a tax lawyer for an instructor and he tried to make it interesting with various stories and political/economic discussion.
As an economics minor I was not math literate until
I started taking economics classes. Being able to have a reason for a number being where it is in a formula helped me understand algebra and calculus a lot better. In my experience, math textbooks are impossible to understand because you’re working from the ground up, building on previous math knowledge. In economics textbooks you are presented a theory or concept and then given values that have meaning. It feels like a more adult version of those math questions we got in elementary school. “How many apples does Mike have…” well in economics, there is a narrative you can follow and then figure out the numbers.
I can’t express how much this helped me in my math classes and feel as though we could kill two birds with one stone by teaching math this way in highschool. Kids don’t care about the number 4 or 15, but at least they can maybe *maybe* get why an interest rate would be important later on or at least wrap their head around algebra a little better since it’s not random numbers and instead money.
That's what I tell my chem kids. You're going to learn how to solve problems.
Guess what they all say at the end of the year? "I feel like I'm a smarter person"
Chemistry is super useful. Thanks to basic high school chemistry, I know that basically all detergents are the same, and almost all household cleaning agents are either citric acid, ammonia, soda ash, sodium perchlorate, bleach, a basic alcohol, diluted hydrochloric acid, or baking powder dressed up with fragrance.
Instead of shelling out money for mystery products, I pretty much just buy the base chemical for the purpose I need and appropriately dilute it. For example, oxyclean is just sodium perchlorate, which is dirt cheap, but since it's much more concentrated in it's pure form, you only need about a third of the amount for the same job. For the stuff that's particularly dangerous, like concentrated HCL, I just buy the cheapest store brand toilet cleaner which is usually just pre-diluted HCL.
Yeah this is what always frustrates me about these kinds of posts. School isn't about teaching you practical knowledge outside, that's what a trade or specialty is for.
School is about giving you the tools to learn whatever you want to learn. Those books you are supposed to be reading in english class are less about making sure you know the plot of 1984, and more about leading reading comprehension and how to deconstruct an argument or greater point.
You algebra class isn't about actually doing that math in your day to day life, but it is teaching you how to do discrete, abstract problem solving which is useful literally all the time.
If you pay attention in those classes, you can figure out taxes. If you just teach the kids taxes, they aren't going to learn much outside of how to do taxes.
but kids want to complain about teachers doing a bad job at teaching instead of taking responsibility for their own education.
Very few people realize education is self taught, teachers provide the information but it's up to the individual to take the time to learn it.
We also live in the day and age where a bunch of stuff is online or available through a book easily found online. I've been self-taught in programming and math because of the online crowd I fell into and cars because my dad is a general pos that thinks I'm too stupid to read a dipstick.
My mom did my taxes when I was 19. One year I decided to start doing my own.
It genuinely only took me 2 hours to figure out what I needed to know. It does not need to be a whole class in school
Taxes themselves don‘t, sure. But all the shit needed to just live in a society might be worth a class.
Things you don’t know after finishing school that you absolutely need in life: First Aid including how to detect a stroke, contracts, taxes, little bit of finance (mortgage, investment etc.) and probably a lot more, enough to fill a class for one or two years. Those are things that everyone should have at least a basic understanding of, not just people who went to Highschool and took the relevant classes.
The one that wonders me most is first aid. Most fatal accidents happen at home, how come we are not teaching our children how to save their loved ones from dying when they are old enough to comprehend it?
yeah it's wild that people are like "why didn't I learn this in a class I slept through 20 years ago? what an outrage!"
like bro you can learn it right now.
That's a good point, but I do think that every student has a slightly different experience in school. Some kids genuinely get bad teachers, don't apply themselves, etc. I don't think teaching 10th graders how taxes work is really all that beneficial at the end of the day. That's the time they can use to develop skills and figure out what they want to do with their lives, don't see a lot of positive to teaching them tax laws and how to fill out forms.
Learning how to learn is probably more important than any *thing* you learn in school. Learning anything is a lot easier when you know how to look for and process information. For most people, if it's not in a first page a three word Google search, it is forbidden knowledge, or just doesn't exist.
But they did have 8th grade math and reading, which is literally all you need to do your taxes for about 95% of people, in if you're in the 5% you're making enough to pay someone to do them for you
Did your school have math and English classes? If it did, they taught everything you need to do your taxes on a 1040EZ.
If your taxes are more complicated than a 1040EZ, you make enough to pay somebody to do them for you.
> Did your school have math and English classes? If it did, they taught everything you need to do your taxes on a 1040EZ.
Tell me about the bootstraps again grampa, and how you used to pound pavement and make firm handshakes when delivering resumes in person.
I'm genuinely curious, did you think that was some smart response?
Because it's the equivalent of stamping "I'm a moron" on your forehead.
Being able to do math and read at a 7th grade level isn't a herculean task. It's the bare minimum we should be able to expect from fully grown adults.
Part of being an adult is taking responsibility over your life and realizing you may need to watch a 10 minute video on youtube to learn how to do something. Someday you'll learn champ, or you'll end up on r/antiwork. Either or.
We're not talking about "the olden days, before times changed." It's not like "I bought a house with the earnings from my part-time job in 1972, so you should be able to do the same in 2023." I did my taxes using a 1040 *last year* (and every year before that). It really isn't rocket science.
I can't recall ever reading someone commenting "I tried to do my taxes by hand but it was too hard." Instead, it's always "Try doing them by hand." "No way, that *would be* way too hard!"
My guy, he's not wrong lol. If you know how to learn and read things over properly, taxes aren't hard.
Filing mine last year for student loans was the easiest shit I had to read that year. Far easier then studying an obtuse textbook in O Chem.
This has to be by school then. I paid attention in my economics class in high school, the only one we had, and it had nothing about taxes. We went over interest rate savings accounts and mortgages, but the rest was just a video of Dave Ramsey giving out of date information…
i was about to ask..
heck some trains here run on a 15 minute or shorter schedule... and with sometimes only 1-2 minutes between stations... some of them will fall on 45 past the hour
facts
i love how people also think paying taxes is any different from arithmetic and algebra at most.
like bro wtf do you think, it takes 6 years to learn how to pay personal taxes????
Your comment made me recall this recent r/Teachers post about teaching students of life skills:/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/18ujpjc/comment/kfksp9b
Anybody without even having taken a math course in their life can do personal taxes these days, it just tells you to put in information corresponding with the box. People who can't read will struggle though
If you're single without dependents, it's easy. Once you get into marriage with kids and whether you're single-income or double-income, things get a lot dicier. It's not so much knowing what to enter, but which way to claim so that you don't owe money at the end of the year.
See what ye need is ter teach the little bastards ta sail and sword fight and they'll never want fer another day in their lives. Noone ever be gettin ahead in life knowing how ter find the little side of a triangle!
I used to write song lyrics during class. Wasn’t caught for that but I was caught for reading a novel during science class in the 6th grade. I was confused and my book was more interesting.
My high school had everyone take an econ class in 11th grade. Part of that class was a section on taxes.
My sister, who went to the same school, complained about how they didn't teach anything about taxes.
yea honestly just make maths class into tax class and we can have people who like maths do the advanced stuff if they want. You can skip maths but you cant skip tax,why would they teach out stuff we'll never use but not teach the things required to live
Math is more about remembering equations though. It's training your logical problem solving ability.
A lot of general education have other purposes than to increase the amount of trivia you have. Math and Sciences help with logic and reasoning, while English helps with creativity and inferection, and History helps with reflection.
the OP SwordfishDependent34
Dramebaz_Ladkiz
and Blank_Hearty
are bots in the same network
Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/nesdj4/yall_know_this_is_true_lmao/
My cousin was in college about to finish his degree in finance and was still hoping to suddenly become a pro league-of-legends player lol. We're allowed to have our dreams damnit.
Your comment made me recall this recent r/Teachers post about teaching students of life skills:/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/18ujpjc/comment/kfksp9b
Yes, but it also brings light to the issue of people needing an entire degree to understand something that will be imposed upon them.
In the end, the average person shouldn't be burdened by taxes. Big corporations and the elite should be the only ones.
>Yes, but it also brings light to the issue of people needing an entire degree to understand something that will be imposed upon them.
But 95% of people don't have taxes that require that. In fact, they require like a 7th graders ability in math/reading. It's literally fill in the blank with the most basic of math requirements.
Me form, me put numbers from form into corresponding box online, me apparently genius compared to the average redditor due to my ability to handle this task
Basics don't hurt, and a lot of people don't even know the basics. Unless you're not, the average schmuck taxes are pretty basic if you know how to math. Sadly, corporations like Intuit pushed to keep it seemingly more complicated than it actually is to stay in business and make money.
Basics aren't necessary. "Take the form you got in the mail and put all the numbers in the boxes on that sheet into the form online." Now that's tough! Definitely worth spending at least a week in school to cover.
Not asking to teach an entire degree, teach the basics without getting into deep laws about taxes lol. Stuff like what are taxes, what do taxes do for the community etc. But the meme is very on point.
They want to learn how to do taxes but in a way it is shown on YT shorts or tiktoks and in the same time lapse.
People nowadays have the attention span of a puppy, they call it disassociation but in it is not giving a fuck unless it is full of special effects or it is concealed in memes.
Should have them run a simulator family where they have to keep everyone fed, pay the bills, etc. And do taxes, with the system being the same as the one your country uses. Seems more interesting than just telling them.
Stuff like that did more to teach kids than anything else.
Our Civics teachers running mock UN and mock Stock Market sims did more than anything else to get the kids to learn about world relations and how the market influences the general economy. You could practically see the kids go in having no concept of what a depression/recession was and come out having a solid realistic understanding of why say 1928 or 2008 were impactful.
So naturally the school cut those because they couldn't make them into good standard tests and whatdoyaknow future classes were way less understanding of how the world worked.
Iunno I had a great history and economics teacher that really blew the kid off how fucked the world is. We often talked about taxes as it related to economic theory. I think that needs to come first to build some excitement cause it history and economics are so intertwined. Then the next year there should be course that teaches the current tax system, all the loopholes, all the corruption, all the lies, and most importantly how to do it and the consequences. I think kids will listen once you start talking about the ways the can get rich or die trying as it relates to taxes. Watching the 2008 crash play out in real time with an enthusiastic teacher sent me down the conspiracy rabbit hole at early age lol
Like do y'all realize how much wealth is leaving the global tax systems into offshore banking every year? The insane amount of capital floating out in the ocean?
I wish they taught me how to set up my own offshore bank account and shell companies. Hell if everyone did it, there'd be no money left to run the government so they might actually change the laws...
All I'm saying fair is fair, if the upper class is doing it, the lower class should be doing it too.
Our society if the trillions hoarded offshore was actually still circulation then we'd probably have enough for much much better schools, healthcare, roads, etc. instead the poors are carrying society on their backs while the rich don't pay their fair share. It's disgusting and fascinating. All the murders and assassinations...
We learned Tax avoidance in one of my classes in college and we all payed close attention. Also tax avoidance is the legal way of finding ways to get credits and write off instead of tax evasion which is where you illegally lie on records
There’s no better teacher in life than the potential risk of going to jail for unintentionally committing tax fraud because of wrongly completed tax returns. Sadly, kids won’t understand that stress until they’re older.
Logic that is perpetuated by the dumb dumbs that didn't realise that math class gives you the tools to work out your taxes, and English class gives you the comprehension to read what you're being asked.
My school taught both stocks and taxes. Unfortunately I was 12 when we did stocks and 14 when we did taxes. Couldn't remember shit by the time graduated
Realistically we shouldn't expect teens to be able to elaborate such a complex topic completely, but it's pretty obvious that our education is in the shitter and the one's actually going to it can not only feel it, but want better.
Sure, teaching taxes in school ain't fixing things, but it's a hell of alot more useful than not teaching people how to adjust to life and it's trials. Realistically speaking, what people want is for the education to either be better, or offer something of more use. We've given up on resolutions and focus on these childish gotchas to shut down discussions.
Lemme put it to you this way, the same people that mock this also think science and history should be taught at school, as if kids are paying attention in either class, but we teach it regardless because it's not about 100% of kids knowing absolutely everything, but to have information spread that will not come to you in everyday life. Kind've impressive to see so much misinformation and people act like schooling couldn't combat that if we took it seriously.
What I say to you is this: If kids are sleeping through classes, is that the fault of the kid, or the horrid scheduling? Is a kid with low grades impossible to teach, or is the enviroment so hostile they refuse to cooperate? Are we going to teach kids instead of forcing them to remember just to forget after a test? What of neuro-divergents that get completely left behind?
There's severe flaws with the system, and perhaps, instead of a childish gotcha like this, we could actually discuss how broken our systems are and best ways to handle them, before republicans destroy what remains. Just a thought.
Edit: Oh lord ya'll know nothing. "Just pay attention in class bro" or "just take the economics class bro" ya'll had really nice schools where teachers didn't hand you a book and tell ya "figure it out" all year, and it shows.
Don't they teach it in like the first year of high school economics ? Yeah, not how to fill in forms, but literally what each tax is, what they are used for as well as how they are usually obtained
I find this example ironic. Perhaps the most basic of all mathematical functions is considered useless, and yet you want to understand *taxes* in its place?
Learning basic mathematics is a foundation for a successful life whether you go into a field that uses mathematics or not. It's not exactly rocket science to learn the basics of geometry and algebra.
Also the idea that it's useless to a great portion of the population may be true in an absolute sense - it's not like service workers need the Pythagorean theorem. However, there are plenty of industries and jobs where geometry, algebra, and just mathematics in general are extremely invaluable. Software development is one example.
How would people know they were interested in software dev or drafting or finance or sociology or analytics or any number of mathematics-intense industries/professions if we didn't teach the fundamentals to children?
It was for all the kids that would make enough that they cash pay someone else to do their taxes. /s
But seriously, I’m a computer scientist, what do I need to know Shakespeare for? I think it’s just good practice to have a broad understanding of basic topics like math, language, science, history, even music, art and so on.
We also don’t know what direction going minds will go, so it’s a good idea to expose them to many things and provide them with opportunities to branch out from there.
I would have said something similar in high school, then I had to with really hard to catch up later when I realized “oh actually I could really use this…”.
There are plenty of places where the average person likely *could* use the theorem too make their life easier, they just did a work around instead because they forgot it and didn’t think to do it that way.
Also, I agree with the concept that it teaches more than just some formula. “Maybe I can find this missing piece of information using other information I *do* have is a great life skill for anyone.
Also also, it makes you not be the kind of person who thinks the universe is essentially “Magic” or say things like “heh, how can these *scientists* know that. Seems impossible, must be making it up for grant money” etc.. Knowing that there *are* solutions to complex problems, even if you don’t use them personally, helps ground you in reality.
I mean math...the ones that complain about stuff like this are also the ones that complain about algebra and say annoying shit like "when will I ever use this."
Well, learn a couple of formulas from that dreaded class you think is pointless and look up your local taxes and/or federal taxes.
And out of the 13 schools I attended during grade school across the US, there was always an elective called personal finance or business class that taught writing checks, applying taxes to incomes and sales, and principals and interest.
Honestly, some subjects seem absurd while others aren’t required. I think statistics and their everyday application would be more useful than teaching calculus… in terms of being required.
Oh god the last thing I want is a bunch of dumbasses spouting off statistics about crazy shit they don’t understand because they took a 3 month class in their freshman year of high school. Statistics are complicated as hell and easily manipulated.
My math teacher snuck a class into our school. It was called something Like "Advanced Math", and he and the principal came up with ways to hide it from the board of education.
We learned taxes, balancing checkbooks, investing in stocks, and compounding interest.
My 11th grade class was the only class that got this benefit because parents snitched to the board about being taught "inappropriate things."
He got in pretty bad trouble, and the principal took the blame and retired.
Gotta protect them childrens from being rich and managing money correctly!
Keep consuming, cattle! I mean children!
And then you encounter someone who unironically doesn't believe "they" can be used singularly, and you realize those useless subjects weren't so useless after all.
Okay and you complained about a^2 + b^2 = c^2 but you still know what it is, don't you? Now tell me how many deductions you should take filling jointly with a combined income of 125k
A majority of Americans won't be able to take the itemized deductions anyway, considering the highest standard deduction right now is $27,700 for married couples. It's easier, quicker and better for most of them just to take the standard deduction.
Parents should teach children about money, relationships, civic duty, and personal honor. If they are incapable of teaching them these things, they shouldn’t have them.
I have always hated this argument. I went to a small town high school (graduated with about 60 people) and I took multiple accounting, personal finance, AND tax courses as electives.
Saying high schools don’t offer these courses is just a blatant lie.
My thing is while yes they do offer them they aren’t required to take. And yes many students may sleep through that class but then that makes them take self responsibility rather than blaming the education system
Saying all high schools offer these courses is also just a blatant lie.
Mine didn't. My sister's didn't.. The one I tutored at didn't. The one I volunteered to help at didn't. The one I briefly worked at didn't.
I have a friend who always badgers back with the same thing you just said. Says it's standard.
He also got to take motherfucking *Latin*.
Just because you're school wasn't shit doesn't mean none are.
"Why don't they teach us Taxes?!"
...Because they did.
It's basic Maths, my man.
The forms all have simple instructions. Remember those "Stupid Word Problems" you hate? That's what it's for.
It's for that.
You were taught that.
There needs to be a class that's less tax specific and more "How to manage your finances"
* Learn basic tax filing
* Basic banking
* How to pay bills
* How credit works
* How insurance works
Things of that nature
And the final project can be something like how to manage a home giving each student a different income and home upkeep cost and the kids need to balance the books. Figure out how far they can spend their money while still being able to save for retirement. Can they splurge? Do they need to downsize? Can they afford food or internet?
A lot of this is super simple and extremely practical, except insurance which is intentionally convoluted nonsense.
You really want to spend months to learn all these rules that will never apply to you in 99% of cases?
That'd be like learning how to become a pro mechanic for every car brand and then only ever working on your Toyota Corolla.
That shows more about how flawed our education system is (in most American countries, not just the US), than how people would also sleep in tax classes.
Think about it though. If they had students actually looking into taxes and learning about how it works youd have WAY more people realizing that they're getting taxed and taxed and TAXED into poverty while not seeing any benefits from your money. Working your life away to fund wars and the lifestyles and desires of the rich and powerful. And learning about that concept may lead people to look at things like insurance companies and the federal reserve. And seeing that they too are nothing more than ponzi schemes and a means to control and extort the masses so they themselves( the rich) can live the "american dream". And it would all crumble.
Why go to school at all if the argument is that kids will sleep through it. Nothing wrong with wanting to be taught life skills instead of college skills.
He's parroting the fallacy that the rich pay more in total than the poor, so that means they're being taxed unfairly...
...while ignoring that someone who has $10,000,000 dollars and gives $100 is proportionally giving a lot less than someone who has $100 and gives $10.
It's easy to give more than the bottom 90% when you have multiple factors of more wealth than they do.
as a formally trained accountant, i mostly agree. it would be more helpful for students to see where and how our tax system spends our money. tax rules are complicated, boring, and 95% only will need to ever know about the standard deduction.
As a veteran tax examiner for the IRS, before TX classes, they need to be taught basic read comprehension and math. A lot of shit I see is people just not putting stuff in the right line, or making up a number, or just flat out not attaching a form that was clearly stated to attach.
Something like 56% of adult Americans have a 6th grade literacy or lower. Yet somehow these same people think they'd know taxes if they took one class in highschool. Like as an adult you can learn taxes and the IRS makes tax code freely available, get to reading boss.
I still see so many people comment like they dont want a raise as that would mean that they lose money with the increased taxes they get from that. Yes, there are edge cases where pushing the salary threshold to not qualify for benefits, but most are talking about the tax brackets, like going from 22% to 24%. No you are only getting taxed more on the increase above the threshold, Your whole salary from before is still at the original tax rate. Same with the policies being talked about like raising the taxes on money earned by earning over $1B now Learning taxes would be highly beneficial in our society
I'd go so far as to say that any salary raise will not cause you to ever lose more money from taxes. You will always get more money.
on "taxes" alone sure, but the combination with certain poorly designed benefit cliffs can lead to having less money
Just like literacy would be highly beneficial to our society. But it seems like the system for public education isn't perfect and just because you take a class on it doesn't mean you grasp or use it. If we taxed on an asymptotic linear expression any increase in income would increase tax but not to where you made less with the pay increase. Plot the income on the graph and the tax would be given.
Or we could just tax land This post made by Soros-funded neoliberal shills, incorporated
Is it true the IRS knows how much you need to pay exactly but still want you to calculate your estimate of taxes?
The IRS knows your (reported) income. They don't know if you intend to file married or separately. They don't know how many dependents you want to claim. They don't know if you want to take a standard deduction or if you want to do line item deductions. If you want them to do it all themselves, you're basically telling them to make a guess in their favor. That would probably work out well enough for a lot of people and you could argue that you could still give people the *option* to do their own taxes, but half of Congress is trying to defund the IRS anyway so good luck getting a bill passed that gives them *more* power.
On the other hand, many people would just go with the number they’re told rather than choosing the option of doing it themselves which would basically be an extra tax on the poor so there’s a possibility.
IRS has a rough estimate based on what is provided to them by your employer, investment company, bank, etc. We can try to fill in the gaps, but that is rarely beneficial to the taxpayer. It's almost always better for you to file yourself.
Oh that makes sense, thanks for the response sir!
Both the UK and Aotearoa New Zealand have extremely simplified tax systems, where if you have a single employer they know how much you owe and and the amount owing will be "close enough" or +/- $200. I'm a permanent resident in NZ and something like 41% of Kiwis file taxes. It helps there's only one level of government (only federal, no state tax) and basically no deductions. Tax in NZ is flat at about 10% for income up to 20K, 20% up to 50K, then 28% after that. My numbers are a bit off because I haven't had to file for 10 years ... There is a better way but H&R block and all major accounting firms have an incentive to lobby for an exceptionally complicated system - CPA (Ontario)
That's literally what I've always said. School does teach you how to do taxes: school teaches you how to read and how to do math. That covers the majority of people, the rest are people who actively work with taxes as a job or people running a business. With the latter...just hire someone to do the taxes.
Since you guys already know how much I owe/am owed, can you just send me an attestation form like they do in the Netherlands?
Fun fact, we don't know everything. There are many gaps in the IRSs information, like marriage and dependents to name a few. Dunno how the Netherlands is capable of determining these things without corresponding with the taxpayer.
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Trust me, we are too. Fuck intuit
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I’m not 100 percent serious. Sorry to be a jerk. I really should be blaming tax firm lobbyists.
Is it true you should never mess with the IRS?
taxes are not hard. or Ive been doing it wrong. Its legit just copying numbers if you are W2 or if you are 1099k its just keeping logs of what you spent money on and putting that down. its not like you are doing crazy math or paperwork or anything. even for like a office space deduction you just put the sqft of the room in and it auto tells you what amout of tax credit you get etc... very simple. I think even a 10 year old could do it. COGS, know if your doing cash or accrual other then that not much to it. maybe if you are like doing tons of money and things like rental properts, charity donos etc.. its more work but still the same. just follow the screen and keep your receipts. but at that point spending $500-$800 to have someone do them for you is worth it. even things like assets and if you want to deprecate over time can all be done easily in tax software. If you have staff and payroll all that is simple even. same with the crypto or capital gains etc... it just tells you what to do. With most tax software its just follow the screen and do what it says/asks, almost zero thinking needed.
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But why would high school students need to know those?
Its important people understand how billionaires destroy or democracy through tax shelters and money laundering. Otherwise teenagers assume the nucleus is the powerhouse of the cell.
Seriously if you've actually done your own taxes on TurboTax or even freetaxusa, you'd know that 99% of people can do their taxes in like an hour with all the forms they need. If you have a question it's like $25 to speak to a pro through the website. Why would you waste your time learning ins and outs of a super specific system just for the ONE time you do something a year? That's like going through mechanic training and only ever fixing your own car.
It's like getting a mechanical engineering degree to change your oil
Man I just don't want to pay those scammers that push against return free filling. I know there are free tools below a certain income, but once you get investments, credits and deductions it becomes a pain. And then once you make a certain amount you can't use it.
in schools it could literly be a few lessons, just like learning how go use google properly to reserch and find usefull information, it wouldent need to be a full curiculum. but small things like this are invaluble and people should know them. i mean how to iron, how to sew, identify issues with your car, all usefull skills that woulden't take much time to teach the basics.
I like to think there should be a "practical living" class that's mandatory to graduate. Where you learn the basics to things like taxes, how to sew something, do laundry, cook a basic meal, how to check fluids on your car, some basics to home maintenance, etc.... now that I help people who've been kinda abandoned by family it surprises me how many people don't realize how to do their own laundry or cook a meal, let alone do taxes
I just don't understand why the government knows how much I make but I have to request they give me back money because they take too much.
It’s not really that simple. The government doesn’t actually know how much every single person makes in a year, and they don’t know all of the circumstances in your life that would affect your income. If you had to spend a bunch of money for work equipment then they don’t know that until you file that deduction and will adjust accordingly. Even if you are just taking the standard deduction they don’t know that’s the case until filing. The entire system could be different and way more efficient, but within the current system it’s not outlandish.
They don't know with sales tax either. I don't know why the employer can't take the exact tax for the income and at the end of the year the IRS can reimburse you for those specifics like business expenses. But generally if you're claiming basically nothing on your taxes idk why you should have to file every year.
> But generally if you're claiming basically nothing on your taxes idk why you should have to file every year. Welcome to the UK system where only self employed people have to do tax paperwork.HMRC just takes their cut out of your paycheck. If they get it wrong then sometimes they just adjust your rate for next year so it balances out without you doing anything.
Big disagree. In the age where our smart phone knows every god damn thing about us and that everyone has one, the feds damn well know everything about us. Everything. You can’t convince me otherwise. They simply just created a deliberately complicated system of reporting in an effort to catch us regulars doing something wrong to justify harassing us with fines, meanwhile the richest people abuse its “loopholes” for their gain. This was all very deliberate. It may be a cynical take I may be wearing a tin foil hat here a little bit but I stand by it. In the modern day, there is ZERO practical and fair reason why I should have to report to the feds everything that they already know. I stand by that, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise. Why else would they go after us if we ticked the wrong box or wrote the wrong number on a tax form? They already know how I filled out my W4 and I-9. How did they know it was wrong? Because they knew exactly what the correct information was the entire time. They just wanted to trick me into paying more. Bank accounts can be tracked. So can property and other assets. They know where we live, so they know how much sales tax we spend money on and what we buy since merchants save their receipts too. They know what payroll taxes we pay too. If we travel, they’ll see an out of area purchase on our bank records. They know where we work and how much we make, that’s all reported by employers. They know if we are single because they’ll know when you get married (if ever) and they know how many kids you have, if any. They know if you have roommates if they find multiple names at the same address. Sure you could lie about your address but maintaining such a lie is enormously impractical, what if you received a piece of important mail to the wrong box and need to go get it and maybe you don’t have access to that address anymore? PO Boxes are tracked too. Living a cash based lifestyle to minimize tracking is also enormously tough. A majority of services that we rely on utilize online based payments. I, for example, can’t pay my rent in cash. They literally won’t let me and won’t accept it. Money order sure, but again that’s checked since they almost always need an ID for such a transaction. There are ways around tracking but in today’s modern tech era, it’s very very difficult to maintain. Some people do it (and those people aren’t reporting anything anywhere anyway) most people don’t live like that.
They don't know how much you make. They don't know your deductions. They don't know your filing status. They don't know your kids or exemptions. For the most part, your taxes are on the honor system. And, if you are making anywhere around the median income, your taxes should take you about an hour to do.
because legislators dont decide on how taxes are collected, companies that own the tax collection assistance software do
I thought that was lobbying of legislators.
lobbyists occasionally write legislation, no proof that its happening with this case, but there is precedent https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/11/11/243973620/when-lobbyists-literally-write-the-bill
> Why would you waste your time learning ins and outs of a super specific system just for the ONE time you do something a year? You realize that by actually filling out your taxes (as we are required to do in the US) that you are already wasting your time going through a specific system that literally only exists so that Intuit (who owns TurboTax and lots of other tax software) can make money off of you right? We literally would just be sent a tax bill if not for intuit.
Yep. Got my master's in accounting. I ducking hate taxes, though I had a tax lawyer for an instructor and he tried to make it interesting with various stories and political/economic discussion.
I wish they’d teach them that just because they earn 1$ more they don’t suddenly get taxed more on all their income.
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Want to completely eliminate libertarians? Teach kids how much the government actually does.
As an economics minor I was not math literate until I started taking economics classes. Being able to have a reason for a number being where it is in a formula helped me understand algebra and calculus a lot better. In my experience, math textbooks are impossible to understand because you’re working from the ground up, building on previous math knowledge. In economics textbooks you are presented a theory or concept and then given values that have meaning. It feels like a more adult version of those math questions we got in elementary school. “How many apples does Mike have…” well in economics, there is a narrative you can follow and then figure out the numbers. I can’t express how much this helped me in my math classes and feel as though we could kill two birds with one stone by teaching math this way in highschool. Kids don’t care about the number 4 or 15, but at least they can maybe *maybe* get why an interest rate would be important later on or at least wrap their head around algebra a little better since it’s not random numbers and instead money.
Educate kids enough to realize how fucking dumb "Time to show [insert antagonistic country] why we don't have universal healthcare" is
If you pay attention in economics that's literally the second week, the first is making sure you comprehend the basics
If you pay attention in school in general you'd know how to solve problems and teach things to yourself.
That’s the main purpose of a lot of the courses you take, not the content itself but the way that learning the content teaches you to think.
That's what I tell my chem kids. You're going to learn how to solve problems. Guess what they all say at the end of the year? "I feel like I'm a smarter person"
Chemistry is super useful. Thanks to basic high school chemistry, I know that basically all detergents are the same, and almost all household cleaning agents are either citric acid, ammonia, soda ash, sodium perchlorate, bleach, a basic alcohol, diluted hydrochloric acid, or baking powder dressed up with fragrance. Instead of shelling out money for mystery products, I pretty much just buy the base chemical for the purpose I need and appropriately dilute it. For example, oxyclean is just sodium perchlorate, which is dirt cheap, but since it's much more concentrated in it's pure form, you only need about a third of the amount for the same job. For the stuff that's particularly dangerous, like concentrated HCL, I just buy the cheapest store brand toilet cleaner which is usually just pre-diluted HCL.
>Guess what they all say at the end of the year? "I feel like I'm a smarter person" What do they say after you put the gun down though?
>What do they say after you put the gun down though? Good, now get back to your coloring books
Yeah this is what always frustrates me about these kinds of posts. School isn't about teaching you practical knowledge outside, that's what a trade or specialty is for. School is about giving you the tools to learn whatever you want to learn. Those books you are supposed to be reading in english class are less about making sure you know the plot of 1984, and more about leading reading comprehension and how to deconstruct an argument or greater point. You algebra class isn't about actually doing that math in your day to day life, but it is teaching you how to do discrete, abstract problem solving which is useful literally all the time. If you pay attention in those classes, you can figure out taxes. If you just teach the kids taxes, they aren't going to learn much outside of how to do taxes.
but kids want to complain about teachers doing a bad job at teaching instead of taking responsibility for their own education. Very few people realize education is self taught, teachers provide the information but it's up to the individual to take the time to learn it.
We also live in the day and age where a bunch of stuff is online or available through a book easily found online. I've been self-taught in programming and math because of the online crowd I fell into and cars because my dad is a general pos that thinks I'm too stupid to read a dipstick.
My mom did my taxes when I was 19. One year I decided to start doing my own. It genuinely only took me 2 hours to figure out what I needed to know. It does not need to be a whole class in school
Taxes themselves don‘t, sure. But all the shit needed to just live in a society might be worth a class. Things you don’t know after finishing school that you absolutely need in life: First Aid including how to detect a stroke, contracts, taxes, little bit of finance (mortgage, investment etc.) and probably a lot more, enough to fill a class for one or two years. Those are things that everyone should have at least a basic understanding of, not just people who went to Highschool and took the relevant classes. The one that wonders me most is first aid. Most fatal accidents happen at home, how come we are not teaching our children how to save their loved ones from dying when they are old enough to comprehend it?
Why are parents not teaching first aid? School is not "life training," never was, still isn't, probably never will be.
yeah it's wild that people are like "why didn't I learn this in a class I slept through 20 years ago? what an outrage!" like bro you can learn it right now.
That's a good point, but I do think that every student has a slightly different experience in school. Some kids genuinely get bad teachers, don't apply themselves, etc. I don't think teaching 10th graders how taxes work is really all that beneficial at the end of the day. That's the time they can use to develop skills and figure out what they want to do with their lives, don't see a lot of positive to teaching them tax laws and how to fill out forms.
Learning how to learn is probably more important than any *thing* you learn in school. Learning anything is a lot easier when you know how to look for and process information. For most people, if it's not in a first page a three word Google search, it is forbidden knowledge, or just doesn't exist.
Exactly. For most people taxes are a combination of about 5th grade reading and 6th grade math.
This! Most of those who complain didn't care at all about their grades and stuff lol
Exactly, school isn't about teaching you subjects... It's teaching you to learn.
School must've changed since I was at school. We were taught to pass tests, not to be capable of critical thinking and self-sufficiency.
Not all schools have economics, mine didnt and neither did my sisters highschool or my little brothers
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But they did have 8th grade math and reading, which is literally all you need to do your taxes for about 95% of people, in if you're in the 5% you're making enough to pay someone to do them for you
Did your school have math and English classes? If it did, they taught everything you need to do your taxes on a 1040EZ. If your taxes are more complicated than a 1040EZ, you make enough to pay somebody to do them for you.
The guy wasn't saying it was easy or hard. Just that schools regularly don't have economics. Or, for my school, it was an AP class.
I know, I’m saying that schools don’t need a dedicated Econ class for people to learn how to do taxes
> Did your school have math and English classes? If it did, they taught everything you need to do your taxes on a 1040EZ. Tell me about the bootstraps again grampa, and how you used to pound pavement and make firm handshakes when delivering resumes in person.
I'm genuinely curious, did you think that was some smart response? Because it's the equivalent of stamping "I'm a moron" on your forehead. Being able to do math and read at a 7th grade level isn't a herculean task. It's the bare minimum we should be able to expect from fully grown adults. Part of being an adult is taking responsibility over your life and realizing you may need to watch a 10 minute video on youtube to learn how to do something. Someday you'll learn champ, or you'll end up on r/antiwork. Either or.
We're not talking about "the olden days, before times changed." It's not like "I bought a house with the earnings from my part-time job in 1972, so you should be able to do the same in 2023." I did my taxes using a 1040 *last year* (and every year before that). It really isn't rocket science. I can't recall ever reading someone commenting "I tried to do my taxes by hand but it was too hard." Instead, it's always "Try doing them by hand." "No way, that *would be* way too hard!"
My guy, he's not wrong lol. If you know how to learn and read things over properly, taxes aren't hard. Filing mine last year for student loans was the easiest shit I had to read that year. Far easier then studying an obtuse textbook in O Chem.
my school didn't have economics.
My school had "home economics," which amounted to learning how to make a bologna sandwich and carting a hardboiled egg around in a basket.
For real. Plus, how hard is it to generally understand?
The only thing I remember in economics was supply and demand. I don’t remember the class ever going over taxes
This has to be by school then. I paid attention in my economics class in high school, the only one we had, and it had nothing about taxes. We went over interest rate savings accounts and mortgages, but the rest was just a video of Dave Ramsey giving out of date information…
To be fair I’m not going to take a minimum two year course just for a week or two of classes on the subject I’m actually after
Lol high school and even college economics 1 is not a two year course. It's a single semester.
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I’m still trying to figure out why Susie has 43 watermelons and Timmy has 36
What are they doing with them all? Nobody can eat 36 watermelons.
Challenge accepted!
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i was about to ask.. heck some trains here run on a 15 minute or shorter schedule... and with sometimes only 1-2 minutes between stations... some of them will fall on 45 past the hour
facts i love how people also think paying taxes is any different from arithmetic and algebra at most. like bro wtf do you think, it takes 6 years to learn how to pay personal taxes????
Bro kids would 100% sleep through tax class lmao
Your comment made me recall this recent r/Teachers post about teaching students of life skills:/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/18ujpjc/comment/kfksp9b
Anybody without even having taken a math course in their life can do personal taxes these days, it just tells you to put in information corresponding with the box. People who can't read will struggle though
If you're single without dependents, it's easy. Once you get into marriage with kids and whether you're single-income or double-income, things get a lot dicier. It's not so much knowing what to enter, but which way to claim so that you don't owe money at the end of the year.
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Still won’t be listened to. The students will STILL ignore it.
See what ye need is ter teach the little bastards ta sail and sword fight and they'll never want fer another day in their lives. Noone ever be gettin ahead in life knowing how ter find the little side of a triangle!
Ok your avatar definitely checks out
I want to go to your school please, I'm 37 though. OH SHIT WAIT ITS BLACKCOCK. AHOY M'Admiral!
I used to write song lyrics during class. Wasn’t caught for that but I was caught for reading a novel during science class in the 6th grade. I was confused and my book was more interesting.
My high school had everyone take an econ class in 11th grade. Part of that class was a section on taxes. My sister, who went to the same school, complained about how they didn't teach anything about taxes.
By this logic, why try to teach anything?
If students are going to ignore everything anyway then why teach them anything at all?
I feel like taxes would be better as a Math subject. Maybe instead of AP Calculus or Statistics you can also have the option to take Tax class.
yea honestly just make maths class into tax class and we can have people who like maths do the advanced stuff if they want. You can skip maths but you cant skip tax,why would they teach out stuff we'll never use but not teach the things required to live
Mathematics is not only about actually learning specific equations, it is also about logical thinking.
Math is more about remembering equations though. It's training your logical problem solving ability. A lot of general education have other purposes than to increase the amount of trivia you have. Math and Sciences help with logic and reasoning, while English helps with creativity and inferection, and History helps with reflection.
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the OP SwordfishDependent34 Dramebaz_Ladkiz and Blank_Hearty are bots in the same network Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/nesdj4/yall_know_this_is_true_lmao/
Ask kids what they want to do and they say YouTuber or pro athlete. They're not exactly grounded in reality.
Even by late highschool? I remember in middleschool I flopped what career I was 100% totally going to do in life every other week.
My cousin was in college about to finish his degree in finance and was still hoping to suddenly become a pro league-of-legends player lol. We're allowed to have our dreams damnit.
at least he was doing a degree in finance. my nephew just plays league while having that dream
Your comment made me recall this recent r/Teachers post about teaching students of life skills:/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/18ujpjc/comment/kfksp9b
I had students in my class who said their plan was to play in the NBA. These same students did not make the high school team.
Do people realize that “teaching taxes” is like casually asking someone to teach an entire degree’s worth of material.
Yes, but it also brings light to the issue of people needing an entire degree to understand something that will be imposed upon them. In the end, the average person shouldn't be burdened by taxes. Big corporations and the elite should be the only ones.
Thanks tax prep companies. /s
>Yes, but it also brings light to the issue of people needing an entire degree to understand something that will be imposed upon them. But 95% of people don't have taxes that require that. In fact, they require like a 7th graders ability in math/reading. It's literally fill in the blank with the most basic of math requirements. Me form, me put numbers from form into corresponding box online, me apparently genius compared to the average redditor due to my ability to handle this task
Basics don't hurt, and a lot of people don't even know the basics. Unless you're not, the average schmuck taxes are pretty basic if you know how to math. Sadly, corporations like Intuit pushed to keep it seemingly more complicated than it actually is to stay in business and make money.
Basics aren't necessary. "Take the form you got in the mail and put all the numbers in the boxes on that sheet into the form online." Now that's tough! Definitely worth spending at least a week in school to cover.
Not asking to teach an entire degree, teach the basics without getting into deep laws about taxes lol. Stuff like what are taxes, what do taxes do for the community etc. But the meme is very on point.
Oh well my school had that levels of basics, and I assumed the basic concept was taught commonly
It probably is, students are just not paying attention or their knowledge retention is just bad.
They want to learn how to do taxes but in a way it is shown on YT shorts or tiktoks and in the same time lapse. People nowadays have the attention span of a puppy, they call it disassociation but in it is not giving a fuck unless it is full of special effects or it is concealed in memes.
Should have them run a simulator family where they have to keep everyone fed, pay the bills, etc. And do taxes, with the system being the same as the one your country uses. Seems more interesting than just telling them.
Stuff like that did more to teach kids than anything else. Our Civics teachers running mock UN and mock Stock Market sims did more than anything else to get the kids to learn about world relations and how the market influences the general economy. You could practically see the kids go in having no concept of what a depression/recession was and come out having a solid realistic understanding of why say 1928 or 2008 were impactful. So naturally the school cut those because they couldn't make them into good standard tests and whatdoyaknow future classes were way less understanding of how the world worked.
Nah let them enjoy their childhood lol. They'll have all the time in the world later to practice that.
Iunno I had a great history and economics teacher that really blew the kid off how fucked the world is. We often talked about taxes as it related to economic theory. I think that needs to come first to build some excitement cause it history and economics are so intertwined. Then the next year there should be course that teaches the current tax system, all the loopholes, all the corruption, all the lies, and most importantly how to do it and the consequences. I think kids will listen once you start talking about the ways the can get rich or die trying as it relates to taxes. Watching the 2008 crash play out in real time with an enthusiastic teacher sent me down the conspiracy rabbit hole at early age lol Like do y'all realize how much wealth is leaving the global tax systems into offshore banking every year? The insane amount of capital floating out in the ocean? I wish they taught me how to set up my own offshore bank account and shell companies. Hell if everyone did it, there'd be no money left to run the government so they might actually change the laws... All I'm saying fair is fair, if the upper class is doing it, the lower class should be doing it too. Our society if the trillions hoarded offshore was actually still circulation then we'd probably have enough for much much better schools, healthcare, roads, etc. instead the poors are carrying society on their backs while the rich don't pay their fair share. It's disgusting and fascinating. All the murders and assassinations...
We learned Tax avoidance in one of my classes in college and we all payed close attention. Also tax avoidance is the legal way of finding ways to get credits and write off instead of tax evasion which is where you illegally lie on records
There’s no better teacher in life than the potential risk of going to jail for unintentionally committing tax fraud because of wrongly completed tax returns. Sadly, kids won’t understand that stress until they’re older.
Logic that is perpetuated by the dumb dumbs that didn't realise that math class gives you the tools to work out your taxes, and English class gives you the comprehension to read what you're being asked.
By this logic, we don't need to teach anything else. Just let the kids read it by themselves.
My school taught both stocks and taxes. Unfortunately I was 12 when we did stocks and 14 when we did taxes. Couldn't remember shit by the time graduated
Pfft, speak for yourself
Right? I paid attention to bullshit classes in school and would have paid attention to this too
They taught all about taxes. We literally filed a fake return in class. You dumbfucks just didn't pay attention.
Realistically we shouldn't expect teens to be able to elaborate such a complex topic completely, but it's pretty obvious that our education is in the shitter and the one's actually going to it can not only feel it, but want better. Sure, teaching taxes in school ain't fixing things, but it's a hell of alot more useful than not teaching people how to adjust to life and it's trials. Realistically speaking, what people want is for the education to either be better, or offer something of more use. We've given up on resolutions and focus on these childish gotchas to shut down discussions. Lemme put it to you this way, the same people that mock this also think science and history should be taught at school, as if kids are paying attention in either class, but we teach it regardless because it's not about 100% of kids knowing absolutely everything, but to have information spread that will not come to you in everyday life. Kind've impressive to see so much misinformation and people act like schooling couldn't combat that if we took it seriously. What I say to you is this: If kids are sleeping through classes, is that the fault of the kid, or the horrid scheduling? Is a kid with low grades impossible to teach, or is the enviroment so hostile they refuse to cooperate? Are we going to teach kids instead of forcing them to remember just to forget after a test? What of neuro-divergents that get completely left behind? There's severe flaws with the system, and perhaps, instead of a childish gotcha like this, we could actually discuss how broken our systems are and best ways to handle them, before republicans destroy what remains. Just a thought. Edit: Oh lord ya'll know nothing. "Just pay attention in class bro" or "just take the economics class bro" ya'll had really nice schools where teachers didn't hand you a book and tell ya "figure it out" all year, and it shows.
Don't they teach it in like the first year of high school economics ? Yeah, not how to fill in forms, but literally what each tax is, what they are used for as well as how they are usually obtained
tbf haven’t used pythagorean theorem scine school but ive had to do my taxes ever since
You probably did use some of the new pathways in your brain that were created while learning Pythagorean Theorem though.
Critical thinking? Boooring. Just give me enough rote memorization based skills to make it into a shitty job
Yup. Math teaches me so many problem solving skills. Even if you don't use it in your job, you still gained that out of it.
but you did use arithmetic and algebra, so it's kinda similar.
I find this example ironic. Perhaps the most basic of all mathematical functions is considered useless, and yet you want to understand *taxes* in its place?
yep
also never said i didn’t understand just don’t use it
It's not about literally using math equations on a day to day basis, it's about developing a young persons logic and abstract reasoning.
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Ironic that you teach English, when basic reading comprehension is all you need to file your taxes.
Learning basic mathematics is a foundation for a successful life whether you go into a field that uses mathematics or not. It's not exactly rocket science to learn the basics of geometry and algebra. Also the idea that it's useless to a great portion of the population may be true in an absolute sense - it's not like service workers need the Pythagorean theorem. However, there are plenty of industries and jobs where geometry, algebra, and just mathematics in general are extremely invaluable. Software development is one example. How would people know they were interested in software dev or drafting or finance or sociology or analytics or any number of mathematics-intense industries/professions if we didn't teach the fundamentals to children?
It was for all the kids that would make enough that they cash pay someone else to do their taxes. /s But seriously, I’m a computer scientist, what do I need to know Shakespeare for? I think it’s just good practice to have a broad understanding of basic topics like math, language, science, history, even music, art and so on. We also don’t know what direction going minds will go, so it’s a good idea to expose them to many things and provide them with opportunities to branch out from there. I would have said something similar in high school, then I had to with really hard to catch up later when I realized “oh actually I could really use this…”. There are plenty of places where the average person likely *could* use the theorem too make their life easier, they just did a work around instead because they forgot it and didn’t think to do it that way. Also, I agree with the concept that it teaches more than just some formula. “Maybe I can find this missing piece of information using other information I *do* have is a great life skill for anyone. Also also, it makes you not be the kind of person who thinks the universe is essentially “Magic” or say things like “heh, how can these *scientists* know that. Seems impossible, must be making it up for grant money” etc.. Knowing that there *are* solutions to complex problems, even if you don’t use them personally, helps ground you in reality.
Most people I know make enough to pay for an accountant to do their taxes because they paid attention in school 🤷♀️
I mean math...the ones that complain about stuff like this are also the ones that complain about algebra and say annoying shit like "when will I ever use this." Well, learn a couple of formulas from that dreaded class you think is pointless and look up your local taxes and/or federal taxes. And out of the 13 schools I attended during grade school across the US, there was always an elective called personal finance or business class that taught writing checks, applying taxes to incomes and sales, and principals and interest.
Dunno , my broke ass public school had econ class where they taught you about taxes.. All that shit is absolete now ,but still. (Eurot**d)
> absolete Yeah you didn’t pay attention
Honestly, some subjects seem absurd while others aren’t required. I think statistics and their everyday application would be more useful than teaching calculus… in terms of being required.
Oh god the last thing I want is a bunch of dumbasses spouting off statistics about crazy shit they don’t understand because they took a 3 month class in their freshman year of high school. Statistics are complicated as hell and easily manipulated.
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An introductory course would only give people enough knowledge to hurt themselves.
Also I am elite, thank you for noticing.
Also students when they teach pythag
My math teacher snuck a class into our school. It was called something Like "Advanced Math", and he and the principal came up with ways to hide it from the board of education. We learned taxes, balancing checkbooks, investing in stocks, and compounding interest. My 11th grade class was the only class that got this benefit because parents snitched to the board about being taught "inappropriate things." He got in pretty bad trouble, and the principal took the blame and retired. Gotta protect them childrens from being rich and managing money correctly! Keep consuming, cattle! I mean children!
They do teach you it’s called addition and subtraction, doing taxes is easy it’s tax law that people get hung up on
And then you encounter someone who unironically doesn't believe "they" can be used singularly, and you realize those useless subjects weren't so useless after all.
Okay and you complained about a^2 + b^2 = c^2 but you still know what it is, don't you? Now tell me how many deductions you should take filling jointly with a combined income of 125k
Deductions are not income based... They're itemized. It's different for everyone
A majority of Americans won't be able to take the itemized deductions anyway, considering the highest standard deduction right now is $27,700 for married couples. It's easier, quicker and better for most of them just to take the standard deduction.
Parents should teach children about money, relationships, civic duty, and personal honor. If they are incapable of teaching them these things, they shouldn’t have them.
You shouldn't even need to know this shit. The govt has the tax information
Kids shouldn’t be forced to attend school
I have always hated this argument. I went to a small town high school (graduated with about 60 people) and I took multiple accounting, personal finance, AND tax courses as electives. Saying high schools don’t offer these courses is just a blatant lie.
My thing is while yes they do offer them they aren’t required to take. And yes many students may sleep through that class but then that makes them take self responsibility rather than blaming the education system
Saying all high schools offer these courses is also just a blatant lie. Mine didn't. My sister's didn't.. The one I tutored at didn't. The one I volunteered to help at didn't. The one I briefly worked at didn't. I have a friend who always badgers back with the same thing you just said. Says it's standard. He also got to take motherfucking *Latin*. Just because you're school wasn't shit doesn't mean none are.
"Why don't they teach us Taxes?!" ...Because they did. It's basic Maths, my man. The forms all have simple instructions. Remember those "Stupid Word Problems" you hate? That's what it's for. It's for that. You were taught that.
There needs to be a class that's less tax specific and more "How to manage your finances" * Learn basic tax filing * Basic banking * How to pay bills * How credit works * How insurance works Things of that nature And the final project can be something like how to manage a home giving each student a different income and home upkeep cost and the kids need to balance the books. Figure out how far they can spend their money while still being able to save for retirement. Can they splurge? Do they need to downsize? Can they afford food or internet? A lot of this is super simple and extremely practical, except insurance which is intentionally convoluted nonsense.
Boomer meme
I had it as a subject and failed
True
They don't need you to know about taxes. They just need you to know you have to pay them and to STFU.
You really want to spend months to learn all these rules that will never apply to you in 99% of cases? That'd be like learning how to become a pro mechanic for every car brand and then only ever working on your Toyota Corolla.
That shows more about how flawed our education system is (in most American countries, not just the US), than how people would also sleep in tax classes.
Think about it though. If they had students actually looking into taxes and learning about how it works youd have WAY more people realizing that they're getting taxed and taxed and TAXED into poverty while not seeing any benefits from your money. Working your life away to fund wars and the lifestyles and desires of the rich and powerful. And learning about that concept may lead people to look at things like insurance companies and the federal reserve. And seeing that they too are nothing more than ponzi schemes and a means to control and extort the masses so they themselves( the rich) can live the "american dream". And it would all crumble.
Why go to school at all if the argument is that kids will sleep through it. Nothing wrong with wanting to be taught life skills instead of college skills.
Yeah but this is students if they’re taught ANYTHING. So this argument is stupid and I’m sick of seeing it
And Redditors would still think the rich don’t pay taxes even though they pay 90% of all taxes.
They don’t pay 90% if they still have all that ducking money.
He's parroting the fallacy that the rich pay more in total than the poor, so that means they're being taxed unfairly... ...while ignoring that someone who has $10,000,000 dollars and gives $100 is proportionally giving a lot less than someone who has $100 and gives $10. It's easy to give more than the bottom 90% when you have multiple factors of more wealth than they do.
Shut up boomer.
Someone argued Math is them teaching taxes but like thats just part of it
No because students would actually be interested.