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Spreadsheet Lesson #2

In lesson #1 you learned that a spreadsheet is a grid of rows (1,2,3...) and columns ( A,B,C...) that defines a rectangle of cells. Each cell (e.g. C3) can contain a number(100), some text such as "How Much Tax?" or a formula such as (c2*.28) or @sum(c3..c9). You get to the menus by typing a forward slash (/).

ACTIVITY: How Much Tax Would You Pay?

The assignment is to figure out what fraction of his income a hypothetical self employed person in the USA pays in taxes given a bunch of different taxes.

Different values are given as functions of other values. You need to calculate some intermediate values, and put only taxes in column 3 so you can add up that column.

Here are the numbers to plug into the spreadsheet:

Yearly Income: 50,000
Federal Income tax: 28%
State Income Tax: 13%
Social Security: 15%
House Value is 6 times income.
Property Tax is 2% of the house value.
Taxable spending is 20% of income.
The sales tax rate is 9%.

Calculate the following:

Intermediate values as needed (like value of house and money spent at store)
Total taxes paid.
Percentage of Yearly Income spent on taxes (take fraction and multiply by 100).
How much money left over after taxes each year.
How much is left each month after taxes.

Hints: Computations can start with a left ( and end with a right ). * is multiply and / is divide. @sum(c3..c9) totals cells c3 through c9. @round(c12/12,0) rounds the result to a whole number. F1 key gives help.

Now change the Yearly Income value and see what happens. Advanced work: This spreadsheet would be better if the Federal and State income tax rates adjusted per your income, as in reality. Make Federal 10% above $10,000, 20% and $30,000 and 30% at $50,000. Make State 3% above $10,000, %6 at $30,000 and 13% at $50,000.