To explore what students think about tax have them fill out our online survey.
Or you can print out and complete the survey here:
Learning experience 2 – How do decisions about spending tax get made in our community?
Key conceptual understanding
That formal groups (for example political parties, and government) make decisions about how tax is spent through monetary policy
Getting started:
What is tax spent on?
The following activities enable students to develop their conceptual understandings about what tax is spent on:
Cartoon
Show the students the Spending tax cartoon with the parents and child driving on a newly developed road.
Ask students to identify all the different decisions that need to be made around building roads. List these on the whiteboard.
Then ask the students who is responsible for making those decisions.
The budget for our community
Ask the students to identify which cabinet portfolios and organisations (formal groups) are responsible for building roads
Considering decisions and responses:
How can formal and informal groups in our community seek to influence decisions about tax?
A local issue
Ask the students to identify a local issue that is dependent on funding, for example, rebuilding roads or buildings after a disaster.
Ask them to identify the groups that are involved in the issue, such as local people, lobby groups, nearby schools, and workers.
Ask the students what problems or events, e.g. consultation requirements, protest action from opposing groups, surround the issue and write them in a list on the whiteboard. You could also ask them to place them in order on a timeline.
Put the students into groups of 4-6 and assign to each the role of a different group affected by the issue.
Ask the students in their role groups to discuss the issues that affect them and make a case for what they would like to achieve.
Then bring the role groups together for a ‘community discussion’ where a representative of each party will present their group’s case and all parties will discuss a resolution.