Grandview teaches students how to file income taxes
It’s crunch time. Some people are scrambling to submit their income tax returns or file for an extension as the Monday, April 18 deadline quickly approaches.
But some Grandview Heights High School students are well-prepared. As part of the high school’s year-long “career math” course, there is an entire unit focused on teaching students how to file their income taxes.
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“The whole aspect of career math is preparing teenagers to be responsible adults,” said William Amurgis, who teaches career math. “One of the responsibilities you have as an adult is to be a contributing member of society. Taxes are a form of contributing financially to society.”
The unit on taxes is extensive. It explains what income taxes are, why taxes exist, how tax money is used, why the government taxes its citizens and the different types of taxes. The students also learn how to read a W2 wage and tax statement and understand the various deductions that are made from a paycheck for income taxes, Social Security and other withholdings.
The students also filled out hypothetical paper W2 statements and 1040 income tax forms, then tried to calculate what their refund would be or what they might still owe to the government.
“I wish I had this course when I was in high school,” Amurgis said. “I didn’t know anything about any of these topics when I graduated high school and college. You learn it on your own, and I like the fact that we offer this course to our students.”
The career math course also covers other various practical topics, including how to buy a house and invest money.
This is the second year that Grandview Heights has offered career math, and interest in the class is growing. Eight students took the class last year, 17 students are currently taking the class and about 37 students have signed up to take the class next year, Amurgis said.
New Ohio financial literacy requirement for high schoolers
It’s unknown how many other Greater Columbus school districts currently have similar courses that specifically include teaching students how to fill out income tax forms.
However, Ohio high school students will be required to take a semester-long financial literacy course to graduate starting with the 2022-2023 school year.
This new requirement applies to students entering ninth grade after June 2022 and will eventually impact about 475,000 students statewide.
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“Everybody, every student, every child, deserves to have this education when they graduate from an Ohio high school,” Sen. Steve Wilson, R-Maineville, a banker who sponsored the legislation, said in a previous Dispatch story.
The bill requires financial literacy to be its own course with an instructor certified through the state.
Charter and nonpublic schools are exempt from the requirement, although students attending those schools on state scholarships must complete the minimum 60 instruction hours of financial literacy.
How career math course is helping students
Career math students at Grandview Heights said the class has boosted their confidence so they won’t be scared or intimated to file their income taxes on their own.
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“I really like how it’s a simulation of real life,” said Hannah Spaulding, a senior at Grandview Heights.
Grandview Heights High School Principal Robert Brown likes how useful the course is, especially since many of the students have jobs.
“It’s just one of those financial life skills that I feel like students more and more need help with,” Brown said. “It’s great to have something where you get an immediate practical application.”
The new financial literacy course requirement will be a separate class at Grandview Heights, and the career math course will still be taught.
“We talk a lot about experiential learning, which really, part of that is making sure we are teaching things that have practical uses and this certainly has a practical use,” Brown said.
It took senior Jacob Rager about ten minutes to file his taxes this year. He filed his own taxes last year, but said it was easier this year thanks to the hands-on experience of filling out a hypothetical W2 form in the career math class.
“I wanted to have a class that gave me some immediate beneficiary to my life, like knowing how to do my taxes,” Rager said.
Read More: Grandview teaches students how to file income taxes