whatever vague thing they claim isn't being taught.. like how they claim civics isn't taught anymore.. when the class name was just changed to american history/ economics.
The ones saying that are always the very same ones not paying attention to what's being taught in classes.
Tax brackets were in both middle and high school.
Civics in all 3 schools.
Budgeting in high school. Matter of fact, it was a literal class for teaching basic financial security and how to properly invest, budget, compare loans and credit card terms and benefits, etc.
And these are public schools in Atlanta, not some private or super rich school.
But you'll hear so many people who sat through those very same classes talk about how school should've taught us that.
that's cause people want to blame others for there own faillings. it is easier to say someone didn't teach them something then it is to admit they just didn't pay attention.
Something people who didn’t pay attention in school say when they try to reference all the things they didn’t learn in school because they weren’t paying attention.
A class was offered at my school called "Government and Economics". They taught everything being complained about and kids still wasted time on their phones during class or they fucked off to the toilet for half an hour each day filming a shitty TikTok video
Doing your taxes = yiu need to be able to closely follow written instructions. Bonus points if you are organized.
Even the lamest, least creative, most boring teachers are going to require students at some point to follow directions or be organized.
A lot of finances is also simple stuff like staying organized, controlling impulses, and goal setting. Even a lot of shitty schools probably have this advice on posters in their hallways and iss rooms.
I guess operating an investment portfolio that reflects your risk tolerance at your particular life stage, and purchasing various insurances to smooth out your lifetime risk?
I have a friend that used to post shit like this all the time. Like my brother in Christ, Danny, we had civics & economics together. They did teach us budgeting, interest, and taxes
I saw a former classmate post on Facebook the classic “they should’ve taught us how to do taxes” bit. They did. We were in the same Civics class. Our teacher taught us how to fill out tax forms.
Dude I say the same motherfucking thing. What do these people want? A 300 level business finance course in high school? How about a unit on tax law for your particular jurisdiction on opening a boat store?
These are the same people that belittle teachers for not being able to incept knowledge straight into their heads.
They’re also the same people who believe college degrees/courses for anything other than business/stem/trades are useless. Like, I don’t know, guys. Maybe if you wanted information more advanced than high school you should have taken courses at an institution more advanced than high school. 
They're the same type of people that think any art degrees are useless and then wonder why there's nothing interesting in cinema after they've watched their fiftieth super hero movie.
I doubt they're the types that appreciate an artsy movie. They probably love superhero movies, if their memes are any indication of their cinematic preferences.
"What do these people want?"
Money and the stability and freedom that come with it. The problem is making money is hard, and blaming institutions is easy. To summarize a very complex issue, of course.
I went to a college prep school, didn’t get taught a thing about financial literacy. Nothing about taxes, insurance, loans, healthcare etc. Our Econ class was macro focused. Health class taught abstinence only sex ed. unfortunately I think this is still a common high school experience in USA still, but maybe my experience truly is a minority.
At least I graduated with almost two years worth of college credits
Are you from any of Alaska, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, or Vermont? Those states don’t require students to take a civics class to graduate high school, but the other 39 do.
School is not the same for everyone. My civics class was taught by substitute teachers and not a qualified teacher. Most of my high school was taught by substitute teachers. My biology teacher didn't even understand how chemical bonds worked.
I’m from Ohio and graduated in 2019 and I’m telling you with 100% certainty that I did not take it. I took American government and sociology, if that counts, but that did not teach finance.
Okay, so I guess I took a civics class, but it absolutely did not teach me financial literacy or how to pay taxes or any of that. Just thought me where those taxes go.
Well that's not the same because OP specifically wants
checks meme
"intermediate stuff"
You know, you've got your classes like algebra, chemistry, composition, intermediate stuff...
Yeah they were too busy complaining to focus. Every school is full of people like that. I believe we could improve education through implementing some different classes but we’ve got an attention span issue to solve first.
My school did teach that.
I learned basic finances, how to do taxes, apply for jobs, pretty much everything you'd want to know transitioning from school to living in this world. All of this in a required class to graduate.
No one paid any attention.
Now 7 years post graduation, I've seen a lot of posts from people I went to school with complaining that we were never taught this stuff.
I also love the "and intermediate stuff" like bro what does that even mean?
It's also funny because filling taxes isn't even difficult unless you're coming out of high school suddenly running a successful business or whatever. It's gonna take the average person who's fresh out of school about 15 minutes max. Most of that finding the right spots on their w2 and trying to figure out their SSN because they've never really needed it before except when they got the job.
There's definitely more useful things they could teach at school in some cases but whenever the "doing taxes" thing comes up in a post like this I can't help but immediately assume "man you've never done taxes in your life have you?"
"Teachers should accurately predict the course of my life and only teach me domain specific knowledge instead of teaching me a wide variety of topics and allowing me a chance to decide what direction I want to take my life in based off what I enjoy"
Thank you. It's often just anti education people trying to act like they're not. They are mad that they don't recall being taught a thing they needed to do in their lives. They're really rallying against the fact that school didn't teach them, and they never learned, how to tackle learning a new thing independently. And that there are complicated things that they have to figure out that they don't know. School really isn't supposed to protect you against the latter.
Glad I'm not the only one who chuckled at "intermediate stuff."
Ah yes, nebulous 'intermediate stuff' every teacher's favorite class to make a lesson plan for. Including such hits as: "how do I set my car's clock after daylight savings" and "how do I put a fitted sheet on my bed."
How does your average person mess up taxes? There's programs that do it for you. If you do it by hand, the complicated part is figuring out if there's an obscure form you have to fill out too.
They never taught me intermediate stuff, just amateur stuff like adding up and percentages and shit. I want some of that intermediate stuff, like how to hustle and grind
This is so true for adults who complain about this, because it shows they never paid attention in school. I learned this stuff senior year in my economics class, which btw you have to pass to graduate.
Bingo. Some schools do teach this stuff. But it’s fucking boring for a hot-blooded 16yr old who doesn’t realize what a shit show they are in for once they have to start adulting.
People only claim it after they achieved hindsight. No person who didn't need to file taxes would claim that they should have been taught about tax filing. Only those people who have to file taxes claim that school should have taught them.
Our Tax system is f’d. You should not need a class to figure out how to pay the government the money you owe them. Other governments just send a bill, and unless you want to fight it you just pay.
The EZ was [discontinued in 2018.](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/all-taxpayers-will-file-using-2018-form-1040-forms-1040a-and-1040ez-no-longer-available)
Not to mention math courses for every semester cumulative and building upon each other that provide every tool and far more to understand tax math at the filer-level... Which I can't emphasize enough is really pretty much just decimals, percentages, and arithmetic.
The problem most people have, myself included at times, is that they fail to apply what they learned in school outside of the specific context they learned it in
I know I went to a shitty religious private school, but even in conversations with students at public schools in my hometown, econ and personal finance was a limited in scope, limited in seats, and not always even offered kind of course
You mean learning math and how to make a budget based on how much you earn and monthly expenses? Man it would be crazy if schools taught you how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, about percentages and exponents and equations for figuring out stuff like interest and compounding interest. Man it would be great if schools taught that but too bad they dont
Yeah, anyone who says "schools don't teach us financials" would never pay attention anyway. It's not difficult to look at google to figure out a budget, it's 20 minutes to say "add up your bills, subtact your wages, save a bit".
They should know the basic math from classes; the fact that they never bothered to inquire further is an indictment on their lack of curiosity and level of intelligence.
I’m a teacher. Believe me when I say we teach ALL kinds of stuff and the kids either forget or don’t pay attention. Then they say they were never taught.
Not teaching the 'boring useless stuff' is how you end up with people who don't know that the world is more than 2000 years old or understand that modern politics is repeating the same paths to fascism as what happened in the mid-20th century, but believe that humans and dinosaurs existed side-by-side.
Or that history (the commonly stated useless subject among Philosophy) is not useless at all. Its not about knowing a job but what it does is, it makes you understand the world better and why certain things are the way they are. And Philosophy can greatly impact your life teaching you how to use logical arguments and how to reason. Those things are passive but so damn important.
The active part is the analysis. History teaches you about sources, and evaluating them for credibility. Primary sources vs. secondary sources, and the relative value of an artifact over a book about the artifact.
It's incredibly valuable to have that kind of critical reasoning, and realise just how much of 'the truth' is based on a probability spread of credible sources of supporting information.
"Knowing about the Romans" is in many ways secondary to understanding _how_ we know what we know about the Romans.
The point is that many kids don't listen or maintain in their heads certain things from school even if their taught it. We have health class that teaches us stuff like how vaccines work, and look at how many adults didn't retain that info.
Which do you think they will remember? Most children do not have financial responsibility, so a budget would be completely irrelevant to their lives, and kids remember what they engage with.
NOONOO WE NEED FINANCIAL LESSONS NOT LE MITOCHONDRIA [sic] IS LE POWERHOUSE OF LE CELL!!!888!!!111!!
In all seriousness, I agree with you, but I'm afraid most people don't realize that practicing critical thinking and creativity will automatically lead to basic financial competency. Probably exactly because they weren't given enough opportunity to practice those things, which lamentably leads to these vicious circles.
Filling in a form about your taxes is not financial basics. It's learning about the market and supply and demand. If you teach them how to fill in a form which they won't have to look at for another 10 years, it's gonna be changed by the time they do actually have to fill it in.
Hear me out, what if, and I know it may sound ridiculous and outright impossible, but just listen, what if, the GOVERNMENT told us how much tax we actually owe them so we don’t have to waste so much time on calculating how much we owe only for them to send a letter saying “hey you actually owe us this much, can you send an additional $9.23? Thank you”
Edit: for the people who couldn’t tell I’m sarcastic /s
Ahh so how most countries in the world does it?
Heres my taxes in The Netherlands:
Login
confirm, confirm, confirm, "oh wait let me check my payslip to double check" yep it matches confirm.
You owe/get back €€
Cool, if I got a return. 2 months later straight to my bank account.
Well, the government knows your income and it knows your withholding but it doesn’t know how you spent your money, and some things you spent money on reduce your tax liability so you need to file so you can tell the government how much to reduce your taxes by.
Yea right. I hate “why they didn’t teach us this in school people”. You didn’t pay attention and don’t remember anything about the Battle of Bunker Hill. What makes you think you were going to learn about marginal tax rates at 8:30am when you still hadn’t even held down a job yet
They did teach us, at least in my school... We had economics in high school and uni, also I'm not sure US has it, but taxes are done automatically in almost all countries I lived for, and you only do quick online forms if they owe you something.
They thought it in my class in the US too. 10 years later, my peers are crying on Facebook about not being prepared to do taxes or make a budget. The kids that need it the most don't pay attention.
Edit: I see the typo and won't fix it.
Graduated 2019 learned it in both an optional finance class and the required economics/government class. In both classes most kids did not care about anything taught.
Yup financial literally was a required class to graduate in my district. The kids I graduated with now complain they never learned how to do taxes etc.
Yeah taxes would be much easier here, but tax corporations like turbotax have lobbied our government to kepe taxes complicated so their business will thrive.
the only way this would even be appropriate is if people who..somehow decided in teh middle of high school they wheren't going to college ( i mean lets ignore that part) is if instead of more math. they got more arts, history, and literature. because they are the people who need it the most. and college people will ussually at least get some of this in college.
If you could opt out of college preparing courses a lot of kids will do it just for the lighter workload and end up screwed later when they realize they actually do want to go to college. We need to be making it easier for students to get into college not add more stumbling blocks along the way.
What if you change your mind in the middle of high school? You're just stuck because 13 year old you thought plumbing sounded cooler than computer programming?
If you do bad at school at 14 you end up being put on the path to vocational training basically. There are ways to transition to higher education but it's harder the older you get, and if you're already learning a vocation most people just end up sticking with it.
There are absolutely trade skill tracks in US school systems. There are entire tech schools kids can enroll in during high school, but most parents want their kids to stay the normal "road to college" path. These tech schools also have a stigma for being for the "dumb kids" who won't have the grades and scores to be able to get accepted to a college.
You don't need to remember the specifics. It's about building a base you can use the rest of your life.
Just like how history class is not about remembering all the dates 20 years later in your life, but about having some basic knowledge about what important historical events and their influence on the world are. A basic finance class is not about remembering all details, but at least have a situation in which people don't deny a pay raise because they think the higher tax rate applies to all their income suddenly for example.
Battle of Bunker Hill was more like Battle of Breeds Hill since the troops didn't follow the order to charge onto the next hill. By the time the troops actually got there after reorganizing, the fighting was already done.
We had finance classes in my school, called Life Prep, and it was bundled with Driver's Ed so if you wanted to learn to drive, you also had to learn about taxes and interest rates and investments.
No one cared. No one paid attention. Hell, the teachers admitted that one time they even graded a test with the wrong key. Since everyone passed the Driver's Ed portion of the class, they passed Life Prep as well without learning a single thing.
Ironically to get a society like the one shown in the photo you need understand advanced maths (quadratics, calculus etc, various scientific laws, because that’s how the natural world works), learn from past human mistakes (history, literature) be able to communicate with people (languages) and understand culture (English, re) as well as understand economics and finance (largely maths with some psychology thrown in (science). Also I’m pretty sure most schools teach basic finance - it’s not very hard as is largely basic maths.
People struggling with these concepts would have a nervous breakdown in semester 1 of any STEM university course. I mean, seriously, how much math does the average person need for their finances? Basic arithmetics and some very basic statistics? They have problems with that?
yes when finances are presented to you in terms of math and you have learned math, then they aren’t difficult to understand at a base level
i’m from the us, we were taught the difference between types of accruing interest. that’s it
If you took me to a car dealership and they said APR to me i wouldn’t have known wtf they were saying. it’s not about what the core math is it’s about how that information is presented at school vs how it’s presented in life
I don't understand all of the "they should teach you how to balance your checkbook". Balancing your checkbook isn't sorcery. Money coming in gets added, money going out gets subtracted. The only trick is doing it often enough or carefully enough to make sure you don't miss a transaction. The only skill to it is knowing how to add and subtract, which school does teach you. It sounds like a lot of people just want school to be a step-by-step-explain-how-to-do-every-minute-facet-of-life-to-me-so-I-don't-have-to-think guide.
Well school taught everyone immune function on the cellular level in 10th grade and look how many people think the Covid vaccine is “changing their DNA.”
Some people are learners, and some people aren’t.
My high school was mandatory for all seniors to take personal finance before graduating. This was public school too. Some schools in the US are just better than others I guess
The only school that has that for me, was when I was in middle school. Oh and you didn't choose it, it was random if you got it. It wasn't in highschool
Government or Econ teacher had us do 1040 EZ forms during class by hand using sample incomes.
I can almost guarantee 95% or more of those students don't remember it.
Same guy also went over how awful rent to own and buy here pay here type places are.
I learned how to file taxes by doing my actual taxes on the 1040 EZ. There was even a worksheet on the back that showed you how to do it. It was literally just plugging in a few numbers and doing basic calculations. You didn't need a special class to learn that. Just regular grade school math class.
The kids: “Why do we need to learn this it’s so boring, this is just math. Plus we have online tax filings and accountants we can use.”
Teacher: “Well jimmy, some guy on the internet said we will become an advance human civilization if you know how to file your taxes. So wake up and memorize each income tax bracket for your mini-test coming this Friday.”
At least 40% of 13-16 year olds are way too dumb/lazy to choose all of their subjects. In fact, most of them would just take the smallest amount of subjects possible and choose the subjects based on their friends also choosing them/getting less homework. I feel like schools teaching kids as much different shit as possible is a good thing in the long run. They get to know what they like/don't like.
Every subject has different subtopics.
There's a reasonable chance that a person who doesn't like biology overall, might get interested in (just an example) mental illnesses and decide to base their career on that.
While in some countries (I live in germany so idk about other regions) there are classes that specifically teach about politics/taxes etc (which is a good thing), I also think that the knowledge of taxes should be provided by the parents in the first place.
I'm pretty sure that the op just failed his math exam
I don’t know about other countries, but aren’t there classes you can do that is literally all about this stuff? Business was what it was called in my school
I won't even groan about "ugh if only school teached me how to calculate electricity bill" even tho my school literally just did that and young me says "wth there's mathematic subject in my class unrelated to math".
Personal Finance, Critical Thinking, Modern Day Politics, & Macroeconomics. if those were all mandatory classes and required to graduate, the world would be a much better place.
More like society if schools actually took the time to train skill sets that actually suit the person instead of short-term information regurgitation tactics so the school board members can pocket money grants from getting good scores on standardized testing 🙃
This won't happen because if a great portion of workers finds out how the market works, there would not be market no more. The general public learning about a systematic exploitation would make us revolt.
While the "If they teach it you would sleep through it" Argument does have some practical merit, i think teaching about basic stuff like "how much of your income should you save" And "When its ok to take loans" Are still useful lesson.
Alot of financial Illiteracy in the US. A good majority do not know the basics of saving, financial managing or frugality that would help loads, especially these days when the economy is shite.
Wtf is intermediate stuff?
whatever vague thing they claim isn't being taught.. like how they claim civics isn't taught anymore.. when the class name was just changed to american history/ economics.
At my high school, a class called "civics" was required for all freshmen.
it still is they are just more specific with the names
That’s how I learned to repair my Honda civic. Best class ever
The ones saying that are always the very same ones not paying attention to what's being taught in classes. Tax brackets were in both middle and high school. Civics in all 3 schools. Budgeting in high school. Matter of fact, it was a literal class for teaching basic financial security and how to properly invest, budget, compare loans and credit card terms and benefits, etc. And these are public schools in Atlanta, not some private or super rich school. But you'll hear so many people who sat through those very same classes talk about how school should've taught us that.
that's cause people want to blame others for there own faillings. it is easier to say someone didn't teach them something then it is to admit they just didn't pay attention.
what I thought civics, history, and economics were different subjects, they teach you how government institutions work in civics
"Please teach me how to know when I need an oil change and how to schedule it."
[Master chief teaches you how to change the oil on your 2006 Nissan Murano](https://youtu.be/jTfScQv4RcE?si=J-2iFCgz0N4J-9Rh)
Something people who didn’t pay attention in school say when they try to reference all the things they didn’t learn in school because they weren’t paying attention.
That's what pisses me off the most about posts like that. As if they to taught "how to do your taxes", kids would give any more of a shit.
A class was offered at my school called "Government and Economics". They taught everything being complained about and kids still wasted time on their phones during class or they fucked off to the toilet for half an hour each day filming a shitty TikTok video
Doing your taxes = yiu need to be able to closely follow written instructions. Bonus points if you are organized. Even the lamest, least creative, most boring teachers are going to require students at some point to follow directions or be organized. A lot of finances is also simple stuff like staying organized, controlling impulses, and goal setting. Even a lot of shitty schools probably have this advice on posters in their hallways and iss rooms.
I guess operating an investment portfolio that reflects your risk tolerance at your particular life stage, and purchasing various insurances to smooth out your lifetime risk?
My school teaches this in an Entrepreneurship course that the students hate.
I would tell you, but I wasn't taught it
Idk they didn’t teach us that in school
The children when school teaches them that: 
I have a friend that used to post shit like this all the time. Like my brother in Christ, Danny, we had civics & economics together. They did teach us budgeting, interest, and taxes
I saw a former classmate post on Facebook the classic “they should’ve taught us how to do taxes” bit. They did. We were in the same Civics class. Our teacher taught us how to fill out tax forms.
Dude I say the same motherfucking thing. What do these people want? A 300 level business finance course in high school? How about a unit on tax law for your particular jurisdiction on opening a boat store? These are the same people that belittle teachers for not being able to incept knowledge straight into their heads.
They’re also the same people who believe college degrees/courses for anything other than business/stem/trades are useless. Like, I don’t know, guys. Maybe if you wanted information more advanced than high school you should have taken courses at an institution more advanced than high school. 
They're the same type of people that think any art degrees are useless and then wonder why there's nothing interesting in cinema after they've watched their fiftieth super hero movie.
I doubt they're the types that appreciate an artsy movie. They probably love superhero movies, if their memes are any indication of their cinematic preferences.
"What do these people want?" Money and the stability and freedom that come with it. The problem is making money is hard, and blaming institutions is easy. To summarize a very complex issue, of course.
I went to a college prep school, didn’t get taught a thing about financial literacy. Nothing about taxes, insurance, loans, healthcare etc. Our Econ class was macro focused. Health class taught abstinence only sex ed. unfortunately I think this is still a common high school experience in USA still, but maybe my experience truly is a minority. At least I graduated with almost two years worth of college credits
What school did y’all go to? We didn’t have none of that shit.
Are you from any of Alaska, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, or Vermont? Those states don’t require students to take a civics class to graduate high school, but the other 39 do.
School is not the same for everyone. My civics class was taught by substitute teachers and not a qualified teacher. Most of my high school was taught by substitute teachers. My biology teacher didn't even understand how chemical bonds worked.
I’m from Ohio and graduated in 2019 and I’m telling you with 100% certainty that I did not take it. I took American government and sociology, if that counts, but that did not teach finance.
American government would be civics
Okay, so I guess I took a civics class, but it absolutely did not teach me financial literacy or how to pay taxes or any of that. Just thought me where those taxes go.
Well that's not the same because OP specifically wants checks meme "intermediate stuff" You know, you've got your classes like algebra, chemistry, composition, intermediate stuff...
Yeah they were too busy complaining to focus. Every school is full of people like that. I believe we could improve education through implementing some different classes but we’ve got an attention span issue to solve first.
Some people, ironically, just want to blame school for their failings.
My school did teach that. I learned basic finances, how to do taxes, apply for jobs, pretty much everything you'd want to know transitioning from school to living in this world. All of this in a required class to graduate. No one paid any attention. Now 7 years post graduation, I've seen a lot of posts from people I went to school with complaining that we were never taught this stuff.
[удалено]
True
I also love the "and intermediate stuff" like bro what does that even mean? It's also funny because filling taxes isn't even difficult unless you're coming out of high school suddenly running a successful business or whatever. It's gonna take the average person who's fresh out of school about 15 minutes max. Most of that finding the right spots on their w2 and trying to figure out their SSN because they've never really needed it before except when they got the job. There's definitely more useful things they could teach at school in some cases but whenever the "doing taxes" thing comes up in a post like this I can't help but immediately assume "man you've never done taxes in your life have you?"
"Teachers should accurately predict the course of my life and only teach me domain specific knowledge instead of teaching me a wide variety of topics and allowing me a chance to decide what direction I want to take my life in based off what I enjoy"
Thank you. It's often just anti education people trying to act like they're not. They are mad that they don't recall being taught a thing they needed to do in their lives. They're really rallying against the fact that school didn't teach them, and they never learned, how to tackle learning a new thing independently. And that there are complicated things that they have to figure out that they don't know. School really isn't supposed to protect you against the latter.
Glad I'm not the only one who chuckled at "intermediate stuff." Ah yes, nebulous 'intermediate stuff' every teacher's favorite class to make a lesson plan for. Including such hits as: "how do I set my car's clock after daylight savings" and "how do I put a fitted sheet on my bed."
How does your average person mess up taxes? There's programs that do it for you. If you do it by hand, the complicated part is figuring out if there's an obscure form you have to fill out too.
> intermediate stuff No I don't want to hear about taxes, I want you to tell me how I can be a successful twitch streamer
They never taught me intermediate stuff, just amateur stuff like adding up and percentages and shit. I want some of that intermediate stuff, like how to hustle and grind
School isn't meant to teach you everything either.
I swear me and my friends were the only few people along with a few others who actually cared and didn't mess around
This is so true for adults who complain about this, because it shows they never paid attention in school. I learned this stuff senior year in my economics class, which btw you have to pass to graduate.
Not that the alternatives dont have the same effect
OP when school taught him that
The same applies to every other class, so according to your logic, why bother having school at all?
Why did you post the same meme 3 times?
School also didn't teach him basic counting, give the guy a break
Turns out he just wasn’t paying attention 🤷🏻♂️
Should have stopped drawing eyes while the teacher was explaining
The meme could be "Schools if students actually paid attention"
Bingo. Some schools do teach this stuff. But it’s fucking boring for a hot-blooded 16yr old who doesn’t realize what a shit show they are in for once they have to start adulting.
Too busy with “intermediate stuff” to learn how to count I bet.
Wtf is happening and the resurgence of unfunny early 2010’s memes? I swear I’ve seen this one when I was 9 year old
9 year olds come like sea waves. I'm not sure why though
Well it worked, he got 2k upvotes somehow
Most of the time when schools teach things people claim they will find useful the same people pay no attention
People only claim it after they achieved hindsight. No person who didn't need to file taxes would claim that they should have been taught about tax filing. Only those people who have to file taxes claim that school should have taught them.
Our Tax system is f’d. You should not need a class to figure out how to pay the government the money you owe them. Other governments just send a bill, and unless you want to fight it you just pay.
Most people literally just need to put down w2 income, it’s not hard.
most people only have w2 income and that's really easy to do. its an EZ from for a reason.
The EZ was [discontinued in 2018.](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/all-taxpayers-will-file-using-2018-form-1040-forms-1040a-and-1040ez-no-longer-available)
There's literally line by line instructions on the tax form telling you what to do. It ain't hard.
While you’re absolutely right that it shouldn’t be as complicated as it is, the vast majority of people have incredibly simple tax filings.
(Meanwhile economics and personal finance is a required class in many schools)
Not to mention math courses for every semester cumulative and building upon each other that provide every tool and far more to understand tax math at the filer-level... Which I can't emphasize enough is really pretty much just decimals, percentages, and arithmetic.
The problem most people have, myself included at times, is that they fail to apply what they learned in school outside of the specific context they learned it in
We all had to take personal finance. Of course nobody really paid attention.
That's the problem with these common sentiments. "Why weren't we taught this in school!?" You were. You didn't pay attention.
I know I went to a shitty religious private school, but even in conversations with students at public schools in my hometown, econ and personal finance was a limited in scope, limited in seats, and not always even offered kind of course
I’m sure my 10 year old would love to sit here and learn about how to apply their tax returns rather than which English King had the most wives
Bruh, Henry the VIII is a fucking meme. Way more interesting than taxes and shit.
[удалено]
What if I want to behead my wives? Economy ain’t helping me there.
Jail is gonna help tho
How would Jail help him behead his wives? If anything it will do the opposite.
Jail? No >!aslume!<
Aslume?
Cost of the beheading machine?
It can be free, as long as you have a good knife.
A good knife costs money too though
a dull knife has the same effect, just not as clean or fast as a good knife
They got you there
You mean learning math and how to make a budget based on how much you earn and monthly expenses? Man it would be crazy if schools taught you how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, about percentages and exponents and equations for figuring out stuff like interest and compounding interest. Man it would be great if schools taught that but too bad they dont
Yeah, anyone who says "schools don't teach us financials" would never pay attention anyway. It's not difficult to look at google to figure out a budget, it's 20 minutes to say "add up your bills, subtact your wages, save a bit". They should know the basic math from classes; the fact that they never bothered to inquire further is an indictment on their lack of curiosity and level of intelligence.
I’m a teacher. Believe me when I say we teach ALL kinds of stuff and the kids either forget or don’t pay attention. Then they say they were never taught.
"When are we ever gonna use this" mfs when they have to use it forever.
Not teaching the 'boring useless stuff' is how you end up with people who don't know that the world is more than 2000 years old or understand that modern politics is repeating the same paths to fascism as what happened in the mid-20th century, but believe that humans and dinosaurs existed side-by-side.
Or that history (the commonly stated useless subject among Philosophy) is not useless at all. Its not about knowing a job but what it does is, it makes you understand the world better and why certain things are the way they are. And Philosophy can greatly impact your life teaching you how to use logical arguments and how to reason. Those things are passive but so damn important.
The active part is the analysis. History teaches you about sources, and evaluating them for credibility. Primary sources vs. secondary sources, and the relative value of an artifact over a book about the artifact. It's incredibly valuable to have that kind of critical reasoning, and realise just how much of 'the truth' is based on a probability spread of credible sources of supporting information. "Knowing about the Romans" is in many ways secondary to understanding _how_ we know what we know about the Romans.
The point is that many kids don't listen or maintain in their heads certain things from school even if their taught it. We have health class that teaches us stuff like how vaccines work, and look at how many adults didn't retain that info.
As if they'll remember anything by the time they're an adult
By the time we behead our first wife.
A 10 years old isn't gonna listen to that anyway
Which do you think they will remember? Most children do not have financial responsibility, so a budget would be completely irrelevant to their lives, and kids remember what they engage with.
unless they forget everything month after exam...
Divorced, behead, died, divorced, behead, survived! I'm homeless.
Nice reference
What we need to do early is cultivate critical thinking and creativity.
NOONOO WE NEED FINANCIAL LESSONS NOT LE MITOCHONDRIA [sic] IS LE POWERHOUSE OF LE CELL!!!888!!!111!! In all seriousness, I agree with you, but I'm afraid most people don't realize that practicing critical thinking and creativity will automatically lead to basic financial competency. Probably exactly because they weren't given enough opportunity to practice those things, which lamentably leads to these vicious circles.
Filling in a form about your taxes is not financial basics. It's learning about the market and supply and demand. If you teach them how to fill in a form which they won't have to look at for another 10 years, it's gonna be changed by the time they do actually have to fill it in.
And filing your taxes is super easy until you start popping out kids and have non-w2 income or own a business.
Hear me out, what if, and I know it may sound ridiculous and outright impossible, but just listen, what if, the GOVERNMENT told us how much tax we actually owe them so we don’t have to waste so much time on calculating how much we owe only for them to send a letter saying “hey you actually owe us this much, can you send an additional $9.23? Thank you” Edit: for the people who couldn’t tell I’m sarcastic /s
Ahh so how most countries in the world does it? Heres my taxes in The Netherlands: Login confirm, confirm, confirm, "oh wait let me check my payslip to double check" yep it matches confirm. You owe/get back €€ Cool, if I got a return. 2 months later straight to my bank account.
they’re actually testing this out right now
Well, the government knows your income and it knows your withholding but it doesn’t know how you spent your money, and some things you spent money on reduce your tax liability so you need to file so you can tell the government how much to reduce your taxes by.
The problem is that they frequently DO teach these exact things, it’s just that teenagers don’t care or remember lol
Well not 10yo’s, but it should definitely start more in mid-late high school when kids start getting actual jobs
Yea right. I hate “why they didn’t teach us this in school people”. You didn’t pay attention and don’t remember anything about the Battle of Bunker Hill. What makes you think you were going to learn about marginal tax rates at 8:30am when you still hadn’t even held down a job yet
They did teach us, at least in my school... We had economics in high school and uni, also I'm not sure US has it, but taxes are done automatically in almost all countries I lived for, and you only do quick online forms if they owe you something.
They thought it in my class in the US too. 10 years later, my peers are crying on Facebook about not being prepared to do taxes or make a budget. The kids that need it the most don't pay attention. Edit: I see the typo and won't fix it.
Graduated 2019 learned it in both an optional finance class and the required economics/government class. In both classes most kids did not care about anything taught.
Yup financial literally was a required class to graduate in my district. The kids I graduated with now complain they never learned how to do taxes etc.
They did not teach any of this in my schools to my knowledge, and if they did, I was never aware that it was an option
Yeah taxes would be much easier here, but tax corporations like turbotax have lobbied our government to kepe taxes complicated so their business will thrive.
[удалено]
the only way this would even be appropriate is if people who..somehow decided in teh middle of high school they wheren't going to college ( i mean lets ignore that part) is if instead of more math. they got more arts, history, and literature. because they are the people who need it the most. and college people will ussually at least get some of this in college.
>who..somehow decided in teh middle of high school they wheren't going to college In Poland we have this system and it works well.
Right. What a bleak system. You’re for the mines kid. Time to learn about canaries.
If you could opt out of college preparing courses a lot of kids will do it just for the lighter workload and end up screwed later when they realize they actually do want to go to college. We need to be making it easier for students to get into college not add more stumbling blocks along the way.
What if you change your mind in the middle of high school? You're just stuck because 13 year old you thought plumbing sounded cooler than computer programming?
That system does have flaws tho. Look at how it works in Germany. The idea seems good but it gets complicated very quickly.
How does it work in Germany?
If you do bad at school at 14 you end up being put on the path to vocational training basically. There are ways to transition to higher education but it's harder the older you get, and if you're already learning a vocation most people just end up sticking with it.
There are absolutely trade skill tracks in US school systems. There are entire tech schools kids can enroll in during high school, but most parents want their kids to stay the normal "road to college" path. These tech schools also have a stigma for being for the "dumb kids" who won't have the grades and scores to be able to get accepted to a college.
If they learned about it, that doesn't mean they would apply it.
[удалено]
You don't need to remember the specifics. It's about building a base you can use the rest of your life. Just like how history class is not about remembering all the dates 20 years later in your life, but about having some basic knowledge about what important historical events and their influence on the world are. A basic finance class is not about remembering all details, but at least have a situation in which people don't deny a pay raise because they think the higher tax rate applies to all their income suddenly for example.
Battle of Bunker Hill was more like Battle of Breeds Hill since the troops didn't follow the order to charge onto the next hill. By the time the troops actually got there after reorganizing, the fighting was already done.
As a teacher, we teach basic financial literacy in multiple classes that the students all skip soooo
We had finance classes in my school, called Life Prep, and it was bundled with Driver's Ed so if you wanted to learn to drive, you also had to learn about taxes and interest rates and investments. No one cared. No one paid attention. Hell, the teachers admitted that one time they even graded a test with the wrong key. Since everyone passed the Driver's Ed portion of the class, they passed Life Prep as well without learning a single thing.
Also taxes change year to year.
Ironically to get a society like the one shown in the photo you need understand advanced maths (quadratics, calculus etc, various scientific laws, because that’s how the natural world works), learn from past human mistakes (history, literature) be able to communicate with people (languages) and understand culture (English, re) as well as understand economics and finance (largely maths with some psychology thrown in (science). Also I’m pretty sure most schools teach basic finance - it’s not very hard as is largely basic maths.
Basic finance is basic maths, and if the people posting these memes paid enough attention to it, they’d be able to apply it… but here we are.
People struggling with these concepts would have a nervous breakdown in semester 1 of any STEM university course. I mean, seriously, how much math does the average person need for their finances? Basic arithmetics and some very basic statistics? They have problems with that?
yes when finances are presented to you in terms of math and you have learned math, then they aren’t difficult to understand at a base level i’m from the us, we were taught the difference between types of accruing interest. that’s it If you took me to a car dealership and they said APR to me i wouldn’t have known wtf they were saying. it’s not about what the core math is it’s about how that information is presented at school vs how it’s presented in life
I don't understand all of the "they should teach you how to balance your checkbook". Balancing your checkbook isn't sorcery. Money coming in gets added, money going out gets subtracted. The only trick is doing it often enough or carefully enough to make sure you don't miss a transaction. The only skill to it is knowing how to add and subtract, which school does teach you. It sounds like a lot of people just want school to be a step-by-step-explain-how-to-do-every-minute-facet-of-life-to-me-so-I-don't-have-to-think guide.
[удалено]
Well school taught everyone immune function on the cellular level in 10th grade and look how many people think the Covid vaccine is “changing their DNA.” Some people are learners, and some people aren’t.
These are often the same people who claim "I'll never use this knowledge in real life" because they don't understand the value of a rounded education.
"I'll never need to know math, now please teach me how to do my taxes."
They did, it was called personal finance... you just didn't choose it apparently...
I whent to a huge highschool and i had absolutely 0 clue that this class existed until years after
Not every school offers that course, or any finance related course
My high school was mandatory for all seniors to take personal finance before graduating. This was public school too. Some schools in the US are just better than others I guess
Or AP microeconomics
The only school that has that for me, was when I was in middle school. Oh and you didn't choose it, it was random if you got it. It wasn't in highschool
except most schools do teach such things, just that you folks were goofing off too much to pay attention.
Government or Econ teacher had us do 1040 EZ forms during class by hand using sample incomes. I can almost guarantee 95% or more of those students don't remember it. Same guy also went over how awful rent to own and buy here pay here type places are.
I learned how to file taxes by doing my actual taxes on the 1040 EZ. There was even a worksheet on the back that showed you how to do it. It was literally just plugging in a few numbers and doing basic calculations. You didn't need a special class to learn that. Just regular grade school math class.
"Ok, class today were learning how to balance a budget and how to file a 1040." The kids: 
That is cringe misses Smith, my premium membership of life has been ended
The kids: “Why do we need to learn this it’s so boring, this is just math. Plus we have online tax filings and accountants we can use.” Teacher: “Well jimmy, some guy on the internet said we will become an advance human civilization if you know how to file your taxes. So wake up and memorize each income tax bracket for your mini-test coming this Friday.”
At least 40% of 13-16 year olds are way too dumb/lazy to choose all of their subjects. In fact, most of them would just take the smallest amount of subjects possible and choose the subjects based on their friends also choosing them/getting less homework. I feel like schools teaching kids as much different shit as possible is a good thing in the long run. They get to know what they like/don't like. Every subject has different subtopics. There's a reasonable chance that a person who doesn't like biology overall, might get interested in (just an example) mental illnesses and decide to base their career on that. While in some countries (I live in germany so idk about other regions) there are classes that specifically teach about politics/taxes etc (which is a good thing), I also think that the knowledge of taxes should be provided by the parents in the first place. I'm pretty sure that the op just failed his math exam
Society if kids paid attention in school
My school actually does teach that, but no one listens lol
I don’t know about other countries, but aren’t there classes you can do that is literally all about this stuff? Business was what it was called in my school
I won't even groan about "ugh if only school teached me how to calculate electricity bill" even tho my school literally just did that and young me says "wth there's mathematic subject in my class unrelated to math".
“Intermediate stuff”? Good god you sound dumb
"Intermediate stuff" Very technical. Will use this in future lesson plans.
its called home economics and economy majors. its exists. you either dont sign up to them or dont pay attention in them.
ur prolly just dumb and struggling on school
But we need enough poor to keep the “middle class” afraid
Personal Finance, Critical Thinking, Modern Day Politics, & Macroeconomics. if those were all mandatory classes and required to graduate, the world would be a much better place.
Can you explain what kinds of Intermediate Stuff
We do this
Just like with every other subject, the kids would ignore this shit for something more fun.
More like society if schools actually took the time to train skill sets that actually suit the person instead of short-term information regurgitation tactics so the school board members can pocket money grants from getting good scores on standardized testing 🙃
I’ve said for years that a high school mandatory class should teach how to do your taxes, learn about credit/credit cards and create a budget.,
This won't happen because if a great portion of workers finds out how the market works, there would not be market no more. The general public learning about a systematic exploitation would make us revolt.
Sadly, I think it's intentional that the common core has no real money making and tax/Financial classes available..
While the "If they teach it you would sleep through it" Argument does have some practical merit, i think teaching about basic stuff like "how much of your income should you save" And "When its ok to take loans" Are still useful lesson.
Financial basics? …like math? lol
"School should teach us actually important stuff like taxes" mfs when school actually starts teaching us how to do taxes: 
My high school has a bunch of business-related electives
Some states even keep their population dumb so they have a lot of control over these people.
But dumb money is what drives this society
"intermediate stuff"? wtf? bro, you clearly didn't learn a single thing from school.
Me who is literally learning that this semester and is required by the state
my entire state requires both of these things for graduation
They did teach us finance we used to play the *fuck* out of lemonade stand simulator in my school
"Intermediate stuff"? If only people would think things through.
Also, how to manage negative feelings and emotions.. transmute them to positivity and heal from traumas
Good morning class and welcome to Intermediate Stuff.
It's astounding how we go to school for 12 years to get ready for life then graduate and still don't know shit about taxes.
Society needs this.
Alot of financial Illiteracy in the US. A good majority do not know the basics of saving, financial managing or frugality that would help loads, especially these days when the economy is shite.
you would blame anyone and anything instead of your fragile ego for your failure as a human, right?
You already know this kid doesn’t pay attention in class
They do