IRS Ethical Tax Practice, Procedures and Research Methods

Open to students who have completed an undergraduate degree in accounting or who have completed the graduate core coursework for the MS in Accounting or the MS in Risk Management Accounting/ CPA concentration, or permission of the department. The focus of this course is to provide students with a working knowledge of federal tax procedure and practice. The course concentrates on the process and procedures of the federal tax system beginning with the filing of a return and includes the structure and authority of the IRS, voluntary compliance, enforcement, federal tax disputes and related issues. Students will learn to identify and analyze the procedural issues involved in a tax controversy in order to represent a client in a civil federal tax dispute from its inception through the administrative process (i.e., up through the commencement of litigation). This course will also cover the full range of tax research techniques/methods incorporating statutory interpretation and legislative history, administrative interpretation including regulations, published rulings and letter rulings (involving an analysis of the relative weight accorded to each), judicial authority (including use of citators and other means to check current status of decisional law) and computerized legal research. Proper drafting of technical memos and opinion letters will be presented and problems and research projects will be assigned for work outside of class.

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