Today dd17 and I worked together on the Tax Project found in Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers.

It’s a weird feeling, teaching my child out of a book that I wrote. But I wrote it eight years ago, and that’s long enough that I sometimes forget the author’s identity for a second  🙂

We sometimes get questions from people asking how old a teen should be to do Life Prep. We respond that it depends on the teen, their goals and which project in the book is being considered.

For instance, a 14-year-old boy will find the Car Project (link goes to free download of this project) a lot more interesting than the Credit Card project, just because most boys of that age are eagerly looking forward to having their own cars.

In the case of the Tax Project, we tell people to wait until their teen has a job that generates a paycheck. There’s nothing like receiving a check for less than you earned (because of taxes, Medicare, and Social Security) to get your attention. It’s amazing how that event can arouse a teen’s curiosity about taxes (primarily why they’re so high!)

Since dd17 has been earning paychecks since last summer, this was a great time to do the Tax Project. Add the fact that it’s time to determine if she needs to file a tax return for 2008, and she was more than eager to do the project. There’s nothing like a receptive student, is there?

It all went well, and only took a few hours. However, I learned that one part of the Tax Project has changed since I wrote it. In the book, I referred to a little pie chart inside the IRS’ 1040 booklet that showed exactly where our tax dollars go. That pie chart is gone, and I could not find it on the IRS web site.

However, I did find a simplified version of it in an IRS Power Point pdf (see page 5). It may be simplified, but it’s as depressing as ever. Dd and I had a good discussion about that, too. We homeschoolers are so fortunate to have the time to teach our teens about these things before they leave home.