A country’s economic development is dependent on its citizens’ civic responsibility, which includes the submission of taxes. However, the long, complicated, and painstaking procedure of tax return submission often causes fear and confusion among many people when submitting tax returns. Bangladesh is no different. The complication of filing taxes and lack of full awareness about tax return submission process results in errors and non-compliance. To submit tax return, we often seek help from tax return preparers (TRPs) or lawyers. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) of Bangladesh publishes an updated manual on tax submission each year. However, few people can invest the sufficient time and effort to read and understand the often seemingly complicated tax manuals. The inclusion of tax-related lessons in the educational curriculum can help our citizens confront their fear of tax return submission and raise civic awareness.

Tax education should be a part of our financial literacy programme and included in the secondary school curriculum. Classes 9-10 are the perfect time to teach young minds since they have enough cognitive and mathematical ability to understand and calculate taxes. Moreover, equipped with this new knowledge, students can help their parents and other family members submit tax returns. Most importantly, those young minds will be better aware of their civic responsibility to the nation and will better contribute through taxation by themselves soon. Thus, introducing tax education in the curriculum will maximise the impact on the overall population.

Now, one may argue that tax education is not going to replace professional TRPs and lawyers, so what is the point of having it in the curriculum? The answer to that is, doing so will ensure an informed population with substantial knowledge on tax submission. They will be much more aware of their tax returns than we are now. At least, people will be more aware of the loopholes that lawyers often use. The objective should be to create a more informed population, not to replace the professional tax lawyers.

Another issue that the naysayers may raise is that any high school graduate is capable enough to read and understand the tax manuals published by the NBR. So, what is the point of giving separate training on tax submission? As argued before, we barely get enough time and guidance in our work life to help navigate the complex system of tax submission that allow us to get the maximum amount of facilities. Learning tax submission during the school years will give us the necessary training and confidence to help us file taxes later in life.

There are examples of tax submission process being taught in school in a number of countries. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the tax-collecting authority in the United States, provides resources for teachers to teach taxation customised for middle school, high school and community college students. The Australian Taxation Office provides resources that can be taught along with school curriculum or at home under the initiative “Tax, Super + You.” Likewise, the UK government’s His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) provides “Tax Facts,” free resources for teachers and parents. HMRC has relevant teaching materials on tax education adjusted for different ages of young students. Jamaica initiated the “Schools Tax Education Programme” (STEP); Kenya introduced the “Schools Outreach” programme. The Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM) organises tax education camp for secondary school children.

Like the above-mentioned countries, we can adopt such financial literacy programmes for school children in Bangladesh, where they can learn about taxation and look at various case studies where they can calculate taxes of different individuals with different types of financial conditions. In addition to learning tax submission theoretically, tax camps can give our students the life lessons needed as conscious tax-paying citizens. Thus, those future taxpayers will be more confident about their financial decisions. Young entrepreneurs, especially those who do business online, will be better able to navigate how they should conduct business to their benefit while improving their tax compliances.

Tax education in the secondary school system will create a culture of voluntary tax compliance and increased community services. Informed citizens will have greater trust in the state since they will be able to understand the seemingly opaque tax systems and will have less apprehension towards submitting tax returns. As income tax is one of the key pillars of domestic resource mobilisation, tax education will help the government implement more ambitious fiscal plans. Moreover, a learned tax-paying population will be more aware of the institutional quality of a country. Thus, tax education can maximise social benefit, ensuring sustainable economic development.