This lesson plan will help students understand that federal, state, and local governments need revenues to provide goods and services for their residents.

This is a fairly detailed explanation of state and federal excise taxes designed for the layperson, not for tax experts.

Many students in high school or in college have part time jobs and learn the concept of gross pay and net pay. Their employers take out taxes at the federal and state level. This lesson takes a common situation and helps students...

This site explores the basics of taxes including finding your tax bracket, income tax calculator, earned income tax, state taxes, states with no income tax, and capital gains.

A collection of resources for understanding income tax law, including its roots in the Constitution, federal and state statutes and regulations, judicial decisions, and links to the websites of government and tax agencies.

This is a tax and accounting site directory. Includes links to varied tax information.

This unit is to expose students to different types of earnings, determine gross earning, calculate payroll deductions, and net pay. This project will have students journalize payment of payroll, employer payroll taxes, and payment of...

Both the federal government and many state governments impose "sin taxes" that tax items and activities which are considered socially harmful. This article explains these taxes and shows how much states and the federal government raise...

This document provides an overview of the organization, operation, and administration of the entire federal court system. The article gives information on the federal judicial branch, the state and federal courts, the structure of the...

Check out this interactive timeline documenting the history of federal taxation in the United States.

Like the state and federal government, local governments offer tax incentives to businesses to help solve economic and/or environmental problems. In this lesson plan, students will explore three different cities and determine what...

Taxes are collected by federal, state, and local governments to pay for a wide variety of services. This article helps students understand where their tax money goes.

Read this text of the 16th Amendment, followed by the history of the Amendment and an analysis. (PDF)

This article provides the background of the 16th Amendment, which established a federal income tax.

Presents a chart contrasting the powers of the National government to the powers of a State government. The powers shared by both levels of government are listed below the chart.

An activity guide where students refer to the Texas Almanac, which is free to download, for information needed to complete assigned tasks. In this activity, they investigate the role the federal government plays in Texas.

This lesson plan will help students understand the methods of filing tax returns and the advantages of preparing and transmitting tax returns electronically.

Activity-based resource in which students apply Constitutional ideas to evaluate the Federal State Tax Law as they make a case for or against abolishing the tax. Site contains comprehensive resources on the topic.

This U.S. Supreme Court case declared the first Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of the New Deal illegal because of the issue of Federalism. This resource provides an abstract containing a concise summary, a link to the full text of the...

The Joint Economic Committee, composed of memebers from both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, reviews economic conditions and recommends improvements in economic policy. The content of the website includes...

One of the debates at the Constitutional Convention centered on whether states or a national government would have greater authority. Read a reconstruction of speeches given by delegates to the convention concerning this important issue....

How would you deal with the national budget if you were the President of the United States? What if there was a national emergency? This site includes a budget simulation on the computer that allows students to make real budget...

The Supreme Court ruling in this landmark case declared that states could not tax federal institutions.

Our Documents is home to one hundred milestone documents that influenced that course of American history and American democracy. Includes full-page scans of each document, transcriptions, background information on their significance, and...