Sarah's Tax Lessons

Sarah’s
Tax Lessons

by Tale Weavers

Weaving tales,
breaking stereotypes

TALE Tale Weavers is an initiative that aims
to engage with children and the youth
weavers through stories that challenge stereotypes
and break the barriers in creating a just
weaving tales, breaking stereotypes society.
​
We welcome you to our world of stories
where simple conversations, colorful
illustrations, and powerful characters
help break the stereotypes and create an
inclusive learning space which is free
of bias - be it gender, religion, race,
nationality or ethnicity.

This story is part of Tale Weaver’s
Financial Literacy series that aims
at empowering children with basic
financial education, an essential life
skill.

Sarah’s
Tax Lessons

Story: Nanditha Ravindar
Illustrations: Jisha Unnikrishnan
Edited by: Kirthi Jayakumar

It was a bright Friday morning.

The weekend was just around the corner and Sarah was
in great spirits. The reason?
Her school was not working today because of some
repair work they had to do.
That means she had three days off. She thought about
that and walked into the hall happily.



Just as she entered

the hall, she saw her
mom rushing out of the
house, getting into her
car and driving away.

P“ apa, where is mom

going? I thought she was
not going to the office
today,” she asked.
“She isn’t going to the
office, honey. She is
going to pay her income
tax,” her father replied.

“Tax? What is that? I have never heard that word

before,” Sarah said.
“Go brush your teeth first and then come. I will tell you
what a tax is,” her father replied.

Sarah rushed to the

bathroom, brushed her
teeth as quickly as she
could and then rushed
back to the hall to sit
down next to her father
on the sofa.
She loved learning new
things!

“Okay. To put it simply, tax is an amount that you

have to compulsorily give to the government from what
you earn. All citizens who earn above a certain amount
have to pay taxes,” her father said.
“But papa, mom works hard for her money. Why should
she give money to the government without any reason?
That does not sound fair,” Sarah seemed a bit upset.



“No no, Sarah.

The government
uses such money
for our welfare
only.

Think about this for a moment...All of us in an area

use roads, bridges, trains, buses or even street lights
that you see on the road. You need a lot of money to
build and maintain all this. Whatever taxes we pay goes
towards such expenses which will benefit everyone.”

“Oh I never thought about all that, daddy. Hmm.
Okay. In that case, is income the only thing that is

taxed?” Her father smiled. Sarah

was always a curious child.

“The word you use for that

is ‘taxable’. And no, Sarah.

Income tax is not the only

thing that is taxable.

Even if you run a business
and make money out of
that, you will have to pay
taxes.

“In fact, there is another way the government

makes us pay taxes which may not seem obvious. The
products that we buy every other day also contain a
certain amount of tax.

This could be a tax on small
things like soaps and cool
drinks, or big things like cars
and computers. So the tax part
is included in the cost or price
that we pay for the product
though we may not be aware
of it.

There are various other taxes
apart from these as well,” her
father said.

“Oh wow. Okay.

I now understand taxes better.
It does seem like mommy
is doing the correct thing by
paying her tax. Especially
since the street light outside
is not working and the
government has not changed
it yet,” Sarah laughed.

Her father
laughed as
well, realizing
how smart
and funny his
daughter was.

The End

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