The current Civic-Tax Education Program, created in May 2003, had as its main antecedents the various sociological investigations of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which allowed to know in a continuous way the social perception of taxation, and the recommendations made in 1994 by the Special Unit for the Study of Fraud on the convenience of introducing tax education in the educational system.

This important activity of the Tax Agency is based on social demand, evidenced in sociological studies, being aware that civic-fiscal awareness, as part of general civic awareness, is the result of education. Correct fiscal behavior is learned, just as other citizenship subjects are learned, such as road safety.  The lack of adequate fiscal awareness can ultimately lead to tax non-compliance, the harm of which is suffered by all citizens as the lack of income affects public goods and services.

If there is a priority objective in tax education, and one that the Tax Agency trainers never forget, it is the transmission of values and attitudes favorable to fiscal responsibility and contrary to fraudulent behavior. It is about training in values and raising awareness about the social importance of taxes. Civic-tax education tries to anticipate the work of raising awareness by participating in the training of future taxpayers to achieve an early understanding of the social function of taxes.

The program has as a fundamental teaching tool the Civic-Tax Education Portal , which is located in the Electronic Headquarters of the Tax Agency, which has two different accesses: one for teachers and one for the students. That of the students currently has three educational levels to adapt the contents and language to these stages. First level, for the third cycle of Primary Education; second level, for the first cycle of Compulsory Secondary Education, and third level, for the second cycle of Compulsory Secondary Education.

The part of the portal dedicated to teachers includes six teaching guides that support them in working on civic-tax education and that deal with the following topics: 1) What are taxes for? 2) Who pays the taxes. 3) What taxes are there. 4) What are customs. 5) Who collects taxes and controls customs. 6) Since when are there taxes? In addition to the six guides, the portal contains two generic presentations, for each of the three levels, on public expenditure and income, a glossary of terms, a bibliography and links of interest.

This program currently has 274 trainers (Agency staff), distributed throughout all the Delegations of the national territory, carrying out, among other activities, the following:

• Open days (visits to the Delegations), with the participation of about 960 students (Primary, ESO and Baccalaureate).

• Visits to educational centres by Tax Agency staff, with the participation of more than 9,155 students.

• Courses and talks in faculties and university schools, with the participation of 1,151 students.

  It is worth highlighting the increase in activities carried out in this area, favored by the signing of Collaboration Protocols with Universities, which include among their objectives the transmission of civic-tax values. Special emphasis is placed on the faculties of Educational Sciences, and in teacher training centers.

The effectiveness of tax education is evident in the anonymous responses of students and teachers participating in the educational talks. Almost 20 years later, the Civic-Tax Education Program continues to bear fruit thanks to the collaboration of the Tax Agency employees and the high degree of interest and participation of the students.

The Tax Agency will continue to focus on strengthening this work with the conviction that awareness in the initial stages of people's development will determine their tax behavior in adult stages.