Second look at the initial tax course;

              A SECOND LOOK AT THE
The setting is collegiate-an air-conditioned
amphitheater classroom in
the Commerce West building on the
campus of the University ot Illinois.
The dress is casual, with shorts,
sandals and sport shirts prevailing.
The discussion is lively; the parlance,
professional. This is one of the
discussion sessions at the Firm's
Initial Course for Tax Specialists,
which has been held on this sprawling
campus each summer since 1968.
H&S Reports covered that first,
notoriously tough Initial Course four
years ago, examining the subjects and
recording the impressions of students
and instructors. Now we have returned
for a second look, to see what changes,
if any, four years have brought.
Has the course been expanded? Have the
teaching methods become more
sophisticated? Just what is different
and how does the difference reflect on
the Firm's growing tax practice?
"Changes? Yes, there have been some
changes',' says Dr. Donald H. Skadden,
Professor of Accountancy at the
University of Illinois, and the man who
was largely responsible for putting the
Initial Course together. Probably the
most noticeable change is in the
appearance of the students. They almost
all have the fashionably longer hair and
sideburns now and four or five in each
discussion class have mustaches.
"As for the course itself, we planned
long and hard when we set it up in 1968,
so the basic format has stayed pretty
much the same. However, we have made a
number of modifications over the past
four years. The first year we had one
session lasting five weeks, with a
three-day break in the middle.
We realized that was a pretty long
stretch of concentrated effort, so from
the second year on we've held two
sessions, with the groups alternating
two-week periods for a total of four weeks
for each group. Naturally, in shortening
the course by a week, we had to review
and refine some of the subject matter, but
I think the way we're doing it now
seems to work out the best.
'We are always taking into account the
comments of instructors and participants
as to how the course might be improved','
Dr. Skadden continues. "We like to be
modernistic in our thinking. For
example, the use of time sharing
terminals was a part of the program
this year for the first time and we
discussed the total concept of the use
of computers in tax planning and new
developments in computerized research
techniques. We want the student to be
exposed to all the new developments
relating to the tax practice'.'
Even minor changes can make a
difference. As in previous years, each
student is expected to spend four to five
hours a day on a reading assignment. But
this year a list of from ten to forty
questions is asked about the assignment:
questions aimed at helping the student
look for the most important facts.
A typical question, for example, might
be: "Explain the basic differences
between the double extension and chain
link methods of LIFO inventory values'.'
These questions usually begin the daily
discussion sessions, with half of the
group, usually eighteen to twenty
attending in the morning and the other
half in the afternoon. The questions
are tossed out for discussion by the
instructor and fielded with amazing
mental agility by the students
(at least it seems that way to a
non-tax specialist).
In addition to the reading assignments
and questions, each student is assigned
a research problem designed to help the
young tax specialist make effective use
of the tools of tax research, the
Internal Revenue Code, the tax "regs','
the income tax services, as well as the
cases, statutes, rulings,
articles and commentaries.
The Initial Course was designed with
three primary goals in mind: to give
the tax specialist comprehensive
training in tax research and tax
planning; to provide substantial
experience in writing tax memorandums
and letters; and to provide an in-depth
study of the technical aspects of
many advanced tax matters.
Seven or eight research problems are
assigned for a discussion session, with
two or three students working together,
and each spending an average of four to
five hours in the tax library doing the
necessary research. A typical problem
might go something like this:
You have been engaged to prepare the
1972 calendar year Federal income tax
return for Ace Contractors Corp.
This is a new client and during the
course of gathering data for the
GilAlonzo, Houston, [I.] discusses
the recommendations he would make to a
tax client, based on hours of tax library
research. His colleagues assigned the
same problem are Kurt Hochfeld of
the San Jose office [c.J,
and John Talley, Allentown.
Relaxation break. Resting on the edge of
"the quad" on the University of Illinois
campus, instructors Jim Cummings (I.)
of Denver and Gene Brown [r] of
Rochester discuss the day's classroom
sessions with Dr. Donald Skadden,
Professor of Accountancy at the University.