"Novel" Approach to Teaching Taxation

• In Event: Reception with ELS posters

Abstract

Taxation is considered a dry, technical and difficult discipline. As a result, motivating students is a challenge. The purpose of this session is to demonstrate how fiction may be used to excite and motivate students, and facilitate their learning. “The Ultimate Rip-Off: A Taxing Tale,” written by Larry Crumbley, is used in an undergraduate individual taxation course. Reading the novel is included as a graded component of the course. This novel tells the story of an IRS agent’s civil and criminal investigation of tax fraud, intermixed with murder and government corruption. Use of this approach achieves three goals: reinforcing students’ knowledge of taxation, enhancing students’ perceptions and interest in taxation, and exposing students to ethical dilemmas encountered in tax practice.

Author

• Stephen C Gara, Drake University