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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.