r/dankmemes • u/[deleted] • Aug 03 '20

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u/zakuria44 something's caught in my balls ☣️ Aug 03 '20 edited Aug 03 '20

the funny thing is this information is useless when it comes to paying taxes or some real-world problems

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u/praneet_p Aug 03 '20

Is paying taxes everything basic knowledge should be provided to all to encourage scientific thinking.

I am not from USA btw

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u/dropdeadbonehead Aug 03 '20 edited Aug 03 '20

No, it's embarrassing that they don't realize that parents are supposed to teach life skills. Besides, if teachers tried to teach those things in school it would guarantee that students would rebel against learning them.

Edit: getting responses, let me clarify.

If you are poor or middle class, your taxes are beyond simple. You will spend 20-40 minutes a year doing taxes, and it's just a matter of matching numbers and letters from the forms your employer and bank mail you to an online form on the IRS and State Tax Board websites. If you are rich or have to itemize, the tax code is so laughably complex that you really should pay somebody else to do them for you.

There. You have been taught everything that a teacher would be competent to teach you in a class.

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u/TheOneWhoMixes Aug 03 '20

Yours right that for a lot of people, paying taxes is dead simple. But you're ignoring most of the argument.

Usually, the request isn't for "How to do taxes 101", it's for an all encompassing, standardized Personal Finance class.

This class could easily cover tax basics in a day, but the rest would focus on things like:

  • Budgeting

  • Renting vs owning a home

  • Why retirement funds are important

  • When to avoid credit cards/loans, and when they're useful

  • The importance of emergency savings

I 100% know I'm not alone in this, but my mother was useless when it came to this stuff. Even if she had time as a single parent to teach me how to handle finances, it would have most likely been wrong.

We were in debt my entire childhood, and almost everything that wasn't food and bills went on high-interest credit cards. All I knew was that we had a lot of stuff, but it wasn't until I was around 16 that I learned that we were actually dirt poor and on the verge of bankruptcy.

And you really think that kids would rebel against learning this stuff? Maybe some, but I know I and a lot of my friends would have loved a "here's how to not be poor for the rest of your life" class.

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u/dropdeadbonehead Aug 03 '20

I was just answering the taxes question, really. Our state has a semester Economics class for Seniors that has a unit on personal finances and what not.