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History, Civics & Social Studies · Grade 8

Income, Work and Taxes in Fictional Cases

How does work turn into income, and income into take-home pay? With fictional workers, learners compare hourly, salary and other pay, calculate overtime under the federal rule, convert salaries to hourly rates, trace gross pay to net pay through payroll taxes and a fictional withholding table, apply a fictional progressive tax table (marginal versus average rates), and weigh career choices using human capital and total compensation. No real tax filing advice is given.

  • 4 lessons
  • About 115 minutes
  • Income and taxes check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: fill in the blanks, choose an answer, match pairs, type a number, sort into groups and true or false
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What learners will discover

  • Compare forms of pay and calculate overtime and equivalent hourly rates.
  • Calculate payroll deductions and net pay, and identify common employment tax forms.
  • Use a fictional progressive tax table to calculate tax, marginal rate and average rate.
  • Explain human capital and compare job offers using total compensation and non-money factors.

Lessons

  1. Forms of pay and overtime 4 steps3 practiceabout 28 min
  2. From gross to net 5 steps3 practiceabout 28 min
  3. Progressive taxes 5 steps3 practiceabout 29 min
  4. Human capital and job offers 4 steps3 practiceabout 30 min
  5. Income and taxes check 9 questions at the end

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