The Expanded Child Tax Credit and Advance Payments: What Your Clients Need to Know

The American Rescue Plan, signed into law on March 11, 2021, contained $1.9 trillion of relief for taxpayers (Segers, 2021). The new law, with several retroactive 2020 tax return items, passed in the middle of filing season. Tax preparers scrambled to quickly understand how to process the remaining tax returns and how to handle the millions of already filed tax returns. Tax professionals and individuals seem to now have a handle on the changes that were retroactive, but the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit and its advance payments are still causing much confusion among individual taxpayers. Tax preparers need to be able to explain this credit to their clients

The Tax Implications of H.R. 5376: Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was signed into law by President Biden on Aug. 16. Interestingly, this Act began its journey into becoming law under a completely different name and year. The Act was originally introduced to the House of Representatives in Septembers 2021 as the Build Back Better bill

Tax Implications of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

On Nov. 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law. The purpose of this legislation is evident in its name as it encompasses funding for “roads, bridges, railroads, airports, public transportation, access to broadband internet, and clean water” (Stradling, 2021). The revenue to support the $1.2 trillion Act will mainly result from “repurposing COVID-19 relief funds and unused unemployment benefits, delaying a Medicare rebate, and enacting stronger cryptocurrency reporting requirements (Stradling, 2021). Although there are few provisions in this Act that will affect the average taxpayer, there are some that tax preparers should note

The CPA Exam is Changing: Are the Professors Ready?

Accounting professors will now be accountable for teaching their students to think critically, analyze, and evaluate information. The pressure to change accounting higher education cannot be ignored with the new version of the CPA exam, released in April 2017, which now tests analysis and evaluation skills. Have the professors made the changes in their classrooms that will help their students to be successful with this format of questioning? This research seeks to find whether professors have indeed embraced pedagogy that will enhance students’ ability to develop higher order thinking skills. The study begins by explaining changes to the CPA exam. The study provides literature review of the accounting education process, traditional methods of teaching accounting, suggested methods of teaching accounting for enhancement of critical thinking, and identified reasons for resistance to changing teaching methods. The survey is designed to identify current teaching methods in accounting classrooms. The survey seeks to discover what methods are being used to develop higher order thinking skills. The results show that lecture and demonstration of problems are still the predominant method of instruction in accounting classrooms, and these methods are not typically endorsed by research in terms of developing critical thinking, analysis and evaluation skills

The experience of performance funding on higher education at the campus level in the past 20 years

Tennessee was the first state in the nation to adopt a performance funding policy which links a portion of state appropriations to colleges and universities to their performance on several educational performance indicators. The purpose of this study was to examine the experience of a single community college with the policy over the 20 year period since the policy was first implemented. A case study method was employed and involved extensive interviews with executive administrators, administrative faculty and faculty. The case study also made use of pertinent document analysis, and observations. Although few of the participants felt that the policy should be discontinued, several improvements were suggested, and a variety of themes emerged concerning the strengths and weaknesses of the policy

The New Lease Standard: What You & Your Clients Need to Know

Article Excerpt: For many years, operating leases have been an easy, legal and GAAP approved way of keeping debt off the balance sheet….

Is Your Client’s Short-Term Rental Truly Tax Free?

Article Excerpt: Tennessee is well-known to tourists. According to the Tennessee Economic and Community Development blog….

Story Writing in the Accounting Classroom

A story is an established method of communicating fact, fiction, parable, and myth from cultural generation to generation. Is it possible to actively engage accounting students with content when the student becomes the storywriter? Can story writing by the student be an effective teaching tool, and should accounting professors consider its use in their classrooms? This archival research seeks to review the literature regarding the value of story writing as a pedagogical tool across academic disciplines in higher education, synthesize the findings of existing research and describe the uses, benefits and difficulties with using story writing in various accountancy classes across the curriculum

Storytelling in the Accounting Classroom

Under what conditions and in what situations is the telling of personal history and other stories an effective teaching tool?Storytelling has been used by many of the greatest teachers throughout history. Plato, Jesus and Gandi, used stories, parables and personal histories to educate students (Zabel 1991). In fact, storytelling has been referred to as the foundation of the teaching profession (Abrahamson 1998). In recent years, the use of storytelling has received attention from academic researchers and has been studied in several academic disciplines. It has been suggested that the use of storytelling in higher education settings increases student performance and recollection (Bryant & Harris 2011). However, few students have considered the potential for the use of storytelling in the accounting classroom.This archival research seeks to describe the value of storytelling as a pedagogical tool across academic disciplines, review the literature regarding the use of storytelling in other academic disciplines in higher education, synthesize the findings of existing research and describe the uses, benefits and difficulties with using storytelling in various accountancy classes across the curriculum, and suggest possible uses for storytelling in accountancy classes