Overview
The research cases involve relevant tax issues covering a variety of
circumstances (e.g., tax compliance, tax planning) and taxpayers (e.g.,
individuals, corporations, partnerships). The first two assignments
will require you to write a tax research memo and provide review comments
on the research memos prepared by the other groups. The third assignment
will require you to write a client letter. The fourth assignment will
require you to complete a tax return for a C corporation (Form 1120),
and the fifth assignment requires you to complete an individual tax return
(Form 1040).
The tax research memo is the most popular form of formally communicating
the results of your research with other professionals. A tax research
memo is a thorough, but concise summary your tax research.
Even though a tax professional is a client advocate, a tax research memo
must be objective. You should look for ways to support a pro-client
position, but you CANNOT let your client advocacy affect your conclusions.
A tax research memo is used to evaluate a particular set of facts (like
a Private Letter Ruling).
-Top-
Preparer and Reviewer Guidelines
As Preparer, you will:
- Research your case (individually), identifying issue(s) and determining
the advice you will give to your client, properly supported by a combination
of the authority you find in your research and your own reasoning. Use
the writing/reviewing guidelines below--the reviewer will use these
in evaluating your research!
- Prepare a research memorandum of your research using the format specified
by the professor (it is slightly different that the format presented
in the textbook) and for practicing CPAs, it may be different that the
format you are accustomed to using at work.
- E-mail your memorandum to richard.newmark@unco.edu
on or before the specified due date and time.
- Post your memorandum to the appropriate discussion forum(see BlackBoard)
during the specified time frame (not early or late ["Late" assignments
are not acceptable in tax practice or in this course]). Late assignments
will receive zero points.
- Once the review period is complete, you may be asked to prepare a
letter to the client, which is to be emailed to richard.newmark@unco.edu
on or before the specified due date and time. The client letter should
reflect the review comments posted. (Try not to be defensive about the
review comments. Carefully consider suggestions and implement those
that have merit.) The client letter often requires additional research
as a result of the review comments. It is also essential that you anticipate
client questions in preparing the client letter.
As Reviewer, you will:
- Familiarize yourself with the writing/review guidelines below-you
will use these guidelines in reviewing the research of others (and for
your own research).
- For each tax research assignment, you will post 3
review comments:
- Review comments will be between 75-100 words
per comment (I will stop reading after the 100th word).
- At least one review comment must address the issues section of
a memorandum.
- At least one review comment must pertain to the reasoning and
authority (R&A) section of a memorandum.
- At least one review comment must be a positive comment. You should
state what was done correctly/well in sufficient detail (e.g., "the
facts section was excellent" is not sufficient).
- Posting may be either original review comments OR responses to
the review comments of others (e.g., disagreeing with a comment
or expanding upon it).
- All postings must be professional, constructive criticism. (For
example, it is not acceptable to simply say "this is bad" or that
a particular element of a memo is unclear. You must offer specific
suggestions for improvement. If you wish, you may even offer specific
case citations that might offer the researcher additional authority
for the case or wording that might make an explanation more clear.
Be helpful!).
- You may comment on any memo(s) you choose.
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