Teacher’s Guide to SC​ Individual Income Tax​​

​To promote voluntary compliance, the South Carolina Department of​ Revenue (SCDOR) works to help​ taxpayers understand state taxes and their filing obligations. To help our future taxpayers, we've created a​ tax guide for ​SC​ teachers to educate students on the basics of state Individual Income Tax and how to complete a tax return.​

The lessons in this guide provide essential tax information specific ​to South Carolina so students may learn about Individual Income Tax, claim tax credits, and accurately complete​ a state return. The lessons can be tailored to the level you teach and the time you have available for this subject. These lessons may be used for a math, economics, personal finance, or elective course.

Our guide is designed to help you in the classroom​:

✔ Each lesson indicates how long it will take to complete so that you can set the pace for your lessons.

✔ You don't have to be a tax expert as the built-in talking points will help you guide the lesson.

✔ Tax terms are in bold. Plan to write tax terms on a board or display them for students.

✔ Exercises can be used at any point in each lesson and modified to best fit the needs of your class and the time you have available.

✔ ​The quizzes may be used as actual quizzes or as review at the end of the lesson.​

✔ ​The guide is intended to be a comprehensive resource for anyone to use – you could even consider fitting it into your sub plans.​

Download the guide

Please note that certain elements of this guide may change each year, based on legislation or other tax law updates. We recommend checking back here each year to download the most recent version of the guide or sign up for our Teacher's Guide​ email list to be notified of future guide updates.

​​ ​​A quick look at the guide​

The guide includes lesson layouts, links to corresponding YouTube videos, class exercises, quizzes and answers, and a list of standards that may be met using the tax lessons.​​

Time: Expect the whole unit to take about 3–4 days to complete (or 4–6 hours) depending on how many of the exercises you choose to do, if you use the quizzes, and if you add more tax information from the IRS resources listed on this page.​

Supplemental modules and resources​ from the IRS​

The lessons below were developed by the IRS and may be used in conjunction with our Teacher’s Guide.​

Because a South Carolina Individual Income Tax return requires you to first enter your federal taxable income, you may want to include modules about federal returns. The modules listed below are available from the IRS ​to help teachers provide lessons about federal taxes​​. You can access the following IRS modules here​.​

We recommend using the following​ selection of IRS modules​:

• ​Module 1: Payroll Taxes and Federal Income Tax Withholding
• Module 2: Wage and Tip Income
• Module 5: Filing Status
• Module 7: Standard Deduction​
• Module 10: Education Credits
• Module 12: Refund, Amount Due, and Recordkeeping
• Module 14: Self-Employment Income and Self-Employment Tax
• Visit the IRS's Understanding Taxes Teacher Site​ for complete details