Alan R. Sumutka
Rider University
Accounting
2083 Lawrenceville Road
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
Telephone Number: 609-896-5193
Fax Number: 609-896-5304
Email Address: Sumutka@Rider.edu
The course is designed to comply with recommendations of the AICPA Model Tax Curriculum Tax Force and the AICPA Vision Project regarding course content (e.g., fundamental tax compliance, decision-making, and ethical planning concepts applicable to individuals, C and S corporations, partnerships, estates and gifts) and student skills/core competency development (e.g., oral and written communication, critical problem solving, use of technology, interpersonal, business and ethical considerations, and team building). Using 16 self-developed cases, the course is taught in the context of "life cycle" taxation, i.e., the basic tax issues an individual is likely to encounter from birth to death, including the ownership of different forms of businesses.
The course technology goals are three-fold and are satisfied as follows:
Primarily, I know that what I am doing (1) is making my students more marketable and (2) is providing them with a foundation for life-long learning. Recruiters are impressed with the students' computer skills. Most students realize that despite the added work, they are learning important skills, valued by the business community, and seem to enjoy using technology regularly. Personally, I have been energized by a new approach to teaching which, despite a current lack of empirical evidence, appears to be beneficial to students. Always at loss for time, technology has permitted me to save class time (via the aforementioned web-based tutorial). I hope to do the same for a RIA tax research tutorial and to further improve student learning via (1) on-line, before-class "pre-testing" to structure lessons based on results, (2) student "bulletins boards" and "chat rooms" as a precursor to "virtual groups," (3) "electronic office hours" to engage more students in the out-of-class learning process, and (4) on-line "pre-exams" as student study tools.
By the efforts of the AICPA Model Tax Curriculum Task Force and the AICPA Vision Project, the profession has expended much time and energy to determine the ideal content of tax courses and the way those courses should be taught to prepare students for the future. To the extent that this course follows their recommendations, I am confident that my students will be most prepared for the future, but more importantly, they will be able to adapt to whatever the future may hold.
The appropriate URL is http://www1.rider.edu/~sumutka/hpg/hpg.htm. For details of this course, review "ACC 410 Fundamentals of Federal Taxation." For related multimedia tutorial, review "Tutorials."