Training Tomorrow's Critical Thinkers: Adapting the Casebook Method to Tax Courses

• In Event: SESSION 5A: Critical Thinking and Accounting

Abstract

There is overwhelming consensus that the discrete skill of critical thinking is fundamental to professional success in accounting, including in tax practice. That this skill can be taught, or at least fostered as part of the educational experience, has reached a similar level of agreement. Differences of viewpoint merely favor certain strategies over others. This paper proposes a pedagogical method generally not included in the accounting curriculum currently but which has been proven by long usage elsewhere. Specifically, the proposal is that carefully selected and edited judicial opinions be included alongside textbook reading in tax courses, thus to a limited extent borrowing the premise of casebooks as used in the law school curriculum. The author’s longstanding practices in this regard are outlined and rationalized both by comparison to the casebook method per se and in terms of the ethical responsibilities of CPAs in tax practice.

Author

• John Gamino, Texas State University