Lesson sheet · Module 27
Taxes and public spending
The aim of the lesson
Know what you pay, when you pay it and where to check. Taxes are not a secret — they are rules you can read.
- 👧 Child: shared things are paid for by everyone together; you ask in order to understand.
- 🧑 Teenager: a tax, a fee and a contribution are different things; gross and net are not the same.
- 🧔 Adult:
- plan taxes in your budget before they arrive;
- file and pay online, on time;
- if in doubt, read the decision, ask the tax authority or the municipality, and keep to the appeal deadlines;
- read the budget by function and compare it with itself and with others.
Your step in Pecuvo: in your wallet, create a category "Taxes and fees" and enter the tax dates of your country in the calendar. For each date, write down: what I pay, roughly how much, where it is paid.
Example: Bulgaria — four dates: 31 March (discount for an online return, ✔ Article 53(6) of the Personal Income Tax Act; if the day is a holiday — the next working day), 30 April (deadline for the return), 30 June and 31 October (local taxes, ✔ Article 28 of the Local Taxes and Fees Act).
The topic (chapters of the module)
- Chapter 1 · What taxes, fees and social security contributions are for
- Chapter 2 · Personal income tax
- Chapter 3 · Indirect taxes: VAT and excise duties in the price
- Chapter 4 · Local taxes and fees
- Chapter 5 · How to file a tax return and pay
- Chapter 6 · Taxpayers' rights and where to complain
- Chapter 7 · Where the money goes: the budget by function
- Chapter 8 · Transparency of public spending: how to read a budget
- Chapter 9 · Links with other modules
For the youngest · ages 6–7
🐣 The youngest: The park, the school and the street lamps belong to everyone. We all pay for them together. Everyone puts a little into a shared box. This is called a tax. That is how there are slides, teachers and light in the evening for everyone.
Play together (5 minutes): On a walk, look for 10 shared things together: a bench, a lamp, a bin, a slide, a tree. For each one found, your child draws a little line on a piece of paper. At home, draw "our shared street".
A question for the evening: "What shared thing would you like our town to have more of?"
A game from the catalogue: OB-01 "My little town" — https://pecuvo.eu/igri/katalog/#ob-01 (in Bulgarian)
Questions for the class — 3 per level
- 👧 1. What is like the shared piggy bank for shared things? 2. Which three shared things are paid for by taxes? 3. Why is pay smaller than the amount in the contract?
- 🧑 1. What is the difference between a tax, a fee and a contribution? 2. What is an indirect tax and where do you see it in the price? 3. Who decides the amount of local taxes where you live?
- 🧔 1. What is the deadline for the annual tax return in your country — and in the Bulgarian example, when does the 5 % discount apply? 2. What does Eurostat say about the share of social protection in your country (or in Bulgaria) in 2024, and how do you read it? 3. What does the Open Budget Survey measure, and what are the eight documents?
A 45-minute plan
- 5 min
- The question for the evening or one from “Check yourself” — what do the pupils think? No right or wrong answers.
- 15 min
- One or two chapters of the module at the level of the class (the “child · teenager · adult” buttons on the page).
- 10 min
- The game or the calculator for the topic — in pairs or on the board.
- 10 min
- The questions for the class. If you like, the open test — everyone writes down only their code.
- 5 min
- The iron principle in the pupils' own words and one small step for home.
Tools for the lesson
- The whole module on the website pecuvo.eu/en/modules/taxes-and-public-spending/
- The open test (9 questions) — pupils write down only their code (e.g. K4B11), no names; the class distribution is shown on the same page pecuvo.eu/en/test/
- The Glossary — terms explained simply pecuvo.eu/en/glossary/