Lesson 2: Personal Taxes - Getting Into It

   Getting into It

Here are some items you will need for the following investigation.

  • 50 pennies or 50 small snacks (such as Skittles or M&Ms)
  • pencil and paper
  • container
  • calculator (optional)

In this activity, you will investigate gross pay, deductions, and net pay.

Task 1


Start with all the pennies or the snacks in one container.

Count out 10 of the items.
Take three of the items from the pile of 10.

What percentage of the items did you remove?
Think: I took three from the pile of 10.
3/10 = 0.3 and 0.3, as a percent, is 30%.

Approximately 30% of gross pay is taken off for deductions such as income tax.

Task 2


Use all 50 items now. If each item represents $100, then all 50 items would represent $5 000. The gross pay of many jobs is around $5 000 a month.

Now, separate the pile of 50 items into piles of 10. Remove 3 items from each pile and put them in the container. The items in the container represent the approximate deductions taken off a typical pay cheque.

How many items in total did you remove from all the piles and place in the container?

How much money would the items in the container represent? Remember that each item represents $100.

What is the dollar amount represented by the items left in the piles?

   Points to Ponder

During this activity, you discovered that for a monthly gross pay of $5 000, approximately $1 500 or 30% is used for the deductions.

Approximately $3 500, or 70%, is left as net pay, which is also called take-home pay. Net pay can be put into a bank account for personal use.


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