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International Handbook on Clinical Tax Education: Chapter 3 Project administration How to set up a tax clinic

International Handbook on Clinical Tax Education
Chapter 3 Project administration How to set up a tax clinic
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table of contents
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. List of figures
  5. List of tables
  6. List of appendices
  7. List of abbreviations
  8. Foreword
  9. 1. Introduction
  10. Part I. The tax clinic
    1. 2. A brief history of tax clinics around the globe
      1. 2.1 Key findings
      2. 2.2 Introduction
      3. 2.3 From humble beginnings
      4. 2.4 From east to west
      5. 2.5 From south to north
      6. 2.6 Conclusion
    2. 3. Project administration: how to set up a tax clinic
      1. 3.1 Key findings
      2. 3.2 Introduction
      3. 3.3 The foundations of a clinic
        1. Institutional and/or organisational support
        2. Costs and wider resources
        3. Supervision
        4. Insurance
        5. Data protection
      4. 3.4 Clinic design
        1. Student and supervisor recruitment
        2. Educational design
        3. Integration into community (client recruitment)
      5. 3.5 Concluding remarks
      6. 3.6 Key reading
    3. 4. Rationale: tax support for low-income individuals
      1. 4.1 Key findings
      2. 4.2 Introduction
      3. 4.3 Historical context
      4. 4.4 The tax charities – what they really do
        1. TaxAid
        2. Tax Help for Older People
        3. Tax clinics
      5. 4.5 The tax charities moving forward
      6. 4.6 Access to the tax charities
      7. 4.7 A rationale for low-income taxpayer support: common tax issues faced by those on a low income
        1. Non-tax issues
        2. Tax complexity
        3. Expansion of self-employment
        4. COVID-19
        5. Late registration and tax returns
        6. Other changes in how people are paid
        7. Incorrect PAYE codes
        8. Pension drawdown
        9. Proliferation of umbrella companies and disguised remuneration schemes
        10. Penalties
        11. Bankruptcy
        12. Digital exemption and assisted digital
        13. Working with HMRC to resolve generic tax issues
      8. 4.8 An international call to action
      9. 4.9 Concluding remarks
    4. 5. Rationale: tax and the poverty interface
      1. 5.1 Key findings
      2. 5.2 Introduction
      3. 5.3 Canvassing the tax and wider social issues addressed by the National Tax Clinic Program
        1. Tax and financial literacy
        2. The unmet need for tax advice in Australia
      4. 5.4 Introducing the UNSW Tax and Business Advisory Clinic
      5. 5.5 Benefit of tax clinics: Australia and internationally
        1. Opportunities for further research
      6. 5.6 Concluding remarks
  11. Part II. Tax clinics and our communities
    1. 6. Engagement in the community
      1. 6.1 Key findings
      2. 6.2 Introduction
      3. 6.3 The external stakeholders in CTE
        1. Supporting your local community
        2. Becoming part of the local community
      4. 6.4 Concluding remarks
    2. 7. Listening to our communities: the Community Tax Law Project as an example of a low-income taxpayer community-focused service provider
      1. 7.1 Key findings
      2. 7.2 Introduction
      3. 7.3 What does a community-focused tax clinic look like?
        1. Mission driven
        2. Community understanding and support
      4. 7.4 What populations are you going to serve?
        1. Demographic scope: how do your clients live, work, pray or play?
        2. Resources and limitations
        3. Learn from failures
      5. 7.4 What do these populations need or want?
      6. 7.5 What specifically does your clinic require to meet these needs and wants?
        1. Community partners: you cannot reach everyone by yourself
        2. Social capital: the who, what and when of building your clinic family
        3. Finances: the lights do not stay on with positive thoughts and well wishes
      7. 7.6 How do I fix the problem at the source? Yelling up the chain: advocacy as part of the clinic’s mission?
        1. Community advocacy
        2. Administrative advocacy
        3. Litigation as a venue for change
        4. Governmental advocacy
      8. 7.7 Conclusion
    3. 8. Public education: the Tax Club UNILAG
      1. 8.1 Key findings
      2. 8.2 The context of the Tax Club UNILAG
      3. 8.3 The creation of Tax Club UNILAG
      4. 8.4 An overview of the club’s activities
      5. 8.5 The importance of tax clubs
      6. 8.6 Some challenges faced by the tax club
      7. 8.7 Support for the use of tax clubs in education
      8. 8.8 Looking to the future
      9. 8.9 Concluding remarks
    4. 9. Public education: engaging with secondary education in schools
      1. 9.1 Key findings
      2. 9.2 Introduction
      3. 9.3 Tax clinics as defenders of taxpayer rights
      4. 9.4 Partnering with secondary education
        1. How the partnership was established
        2. Benefits of the community partnership
      5. 9.5 Conclusion
    5. 10. Taxpayer resolution: improving taxpayer compliance in Indonesia
      1. 10.1 Key findings
      2. 10.2 Introduction
      3. 10.3 Taxation in Indonesia in a nutshell
        1. Registration
        2. Bookkeeping
        3. Payment
        4. Reporting
        5. Audits and penalties
      4. 10.4 Revenue and taxpayer compliance
      5. 10.5 Improving individual taxpayer compliance
        1. The formation of the FoT community
        2. The development of FoT
      6. 10.6 Conclusion
    6. 11. Policy changes: impact on and through the Tax Court
      1. 11.1 Key findings
      2. 11.2 Introduction
      3. 11.3 Government approach
        1. Regulations and other rules
      4. 11.4 Role of tax clinics in shaping the law
        1. Litigation: impact of clinics on the community of low-income taxpayers
        2. Commenting on proposed legislation, regulations, forms and rules
        3. Commenting on systemic problems at the IRS
      5. 11.5 Conclusion
    7. 12. Marginalised voices: tax and the criminal justice system
      1. 12.1 Key findings
      2. 12.2 Introduction
      3. 12.3 Making Tax Digital
      4. 12.4 Digital exclusion
      5. 12.5 Tax issues – people in prison
        1. Digital exclusion – people in prison
        2. People in prison/with previous lived experience of prison as clinic clients
        3. Prison and self-employment
        4. Tax and self-employment
      6. 12.6 Student and university benefits
      7. 12.7 Conclusion
  12. Part III. Tax clinics and our students
    1. 13. Pedagogical theory and clinical tax education
      1. 13.1 Key findings
      2. 13.2 Introduction
      3. 13.3 Fostering the next generation of tax advisers: the importance of pro bono
      4. 13.4 Relevant pedagogical theories
        1. Employability from tax clinics: work-integrated learning (WIL)
        2. Growing student motivation and confidence: self-determination theory (SDT)
      5. 13.5 Concluding remarks
      6. 13.6 Key reading
    2. 14. Enhancing student experience: shadowing, role-plays and reflection
      1. 14.1 Key findings
      2. 14.2 Introduction: pedagogical rationale
      3. 14.3 Initial collaboration
      4. 14.4 Implementation
        1. Student recruitment
        2. EOI, CV and job interview
        3. Participation and presentation
      5. 14.5 From theory to practice
        1. Shadowing
        2. Team-based approach
        3. Role-plays
        4. Reflection and report writing
        5. Career readiness
        6. COVID-19 and the impact on the student experience
      6. 14.6 Conclusion
    3. 15. Introducing tax advocacy to students
      1. 15.1 Key findings
      2. 15.2 Introduction
      3. 15.3 The structure of a clinic course
        1. The seminar component
        2. The client representation component
      4. 15.4 Major design choices within the clinic model
        1. The directive–nondirective continuum
        2. Level of student responsibility for cases
        3. Use of examples and templates
        4. Case supervision
        5. Tension between client service and student educational development
      5. 15.5 Developing a reflective practice
        1. Exercising agency over one’s professional development
        2. Building the habit of reflection
      6. 15.6 Skills and direct advocacy experience
        1. Law firm management
        2. Ethics
        3. Multicultural lawyering
        4. Legal skills
          1. 1. Interviewing
          2. 2. Fact and legal investigation
          3. 3. Client advice and communication
          4. 4. Document drafting
        5. The advocacy mind-set
      7. 15.7 Working with community members
      8. 15.8 Conclusion
    4. 16. Developing employability skills through practice-based learning
      1. 16.1 Key findings
      2. 16.2 Introduction
      3. 16.3 Rationale for the TAC at UEL
        1. To raise awareness and provide free guidance in response to the COVID-19 lockdown
        2. To support employability of our accounting and finance students
      4. 16.4 Relevant literature
        1. Voluntary services: student, faculty and practitioner participation
        2. Pro bono: the participation of experienced practitioners
      5. 16.5 Clinic design
        1. Student volunteers
        2. Practice-led teaching
        3. External impact, collaborations and partnerships
        4. Student experience
        5. The challenges of tax and accounting clinics
      6. 16.6 Data and methodology
      7. 16.7 Results and discussion
        1. Tax and accountancy clinic and employability skills development
        2. The impact of COVID-19 on student TAC experience
        3. The measurement of students’ satisfaction: quality of the TAC training
      8. 16.8 Concluding remarks
    5. 17. Students’ professional identity and a fully online tax clinic
      1. 17.1 Key findings
      2. 17.2 Introduction
      3. 17.3 The Griffith Tax Clinic
        1. Face-to-face
        2. Online
      4. 17.4 Research methodology
        1. Participants
      5. 17.5 Data results
        1. Overall
        2. Nationality
        3. PWE (Professional Work Experience)
        4. Limitations of research and future research
      6. 17.6 Concluding remarks
  13. Part IV. Moving forwards
    1. 18. A research roadmap for tax clinics
      1. 18.1 Key findings
      2. 18.2 Introduction
      3. 18.3 Developing the tax clinic as a research project
      4. 18.4 Mapping the research field
      5. 18.5 Research methods
      6. 18.6 Theoretical perspectives
      7. 18.7 Concluding remarks
    2. 19. Moving forwards: tax clinics and business schools
      1. 19.1 Key findings
      2. 19.2 Introduction: the civic university
      3. 19.3 Widening participation
      4. 19.4 The challenge of professional accreditation
      5. 19.5 Practical experience
      6. 19.6 Some ideas for clinics going forwards
        1. Replacing High Volume Agents (HVAs)
        2. Child Trust Funds
        3. Cryptocurrencies
      7. 19.7 Policy clinics
        1. Desk research for the Office of Tax Simplification
        2. Educating policy makers
        3. Drawing on students’ experiences of the tax system
      8. 22.8 Concluding remarks
    3. 20. Concluding remarks
  14. Index

Chapter 3 Project administration How to set up a tax clinic

Amy Lawton*

3.1 Key findings

This chapter provides an introduction to some of the common starting points and things to consider when designing a tax clinic. As most of the tax clinics discussed in this book are pro bono and client facing, these reflection points are not dissimilar to the practicalities of setting up a legal advice clinic.1

3.2 Introduction

This book serves a number of purposes. It explores the benefits that tax clinics (and wider tax education projects) can have for our communities and students, by showcasing the research of those who have already embarked on this journey, and it asks us to reflect on how we teach tax.

Beyond these more theoretical objectives, this book also seeks to support anyone who is considering a tax clinic or similar project at their own institution.

This book adopts a broad definition of clinical tax education (CTE) and recognises that tax education projects can come in all shapes and sizes. A project is a CTE project if:

1.   It provides a tax service (actual or simulated).

2.   It involves the participation of university students, acting under professional supervision where necessary.2

The provision of a tax service is equally broad. This could range from providing one-to-one tax advice to a client, to providing public education through student presentations or written materials, to simulating tax problems that the students need to solve, to providing tax policy recommendations in a policy-focused clinic.

3.3 The foundations of a clinic

Designing a clinic takes time. To ensure that any project runs smoothly at launch will require a significant amount of planning: for example, the North West Tax Clinic and Scottish Tax Clinic (STC) both took around twelve months of planning before their launch. Many of the Australian clinics were set up quickly due to the funding model proposed by the Australian Government: the Curtin Tax Clinic (the first in Australia) took six months to establish once seed funding was provided and they shared the information of establishment with all the other Australian clinics to make it easier for them to get started. But the motto really is spending the time to prepare before you open the clinic doors.

If you are considering the concept of establishing a clinic soon, take the time to reach out to existing clinics and use their experiences to help your project run as smoothly as possible. Do not be afraid to ask questions such as what worked and what did not – doing this saves you from making the same mistakes that others may have unearthed before you. This book shares some such lessons.

You also need to consider a variety of things when thinking of starting up your clinic, such as: what services the clinic is going to offer; to whom the clinic will offer their services; who is going to assist in clinic; the ratio of students to professional/academic staff; infrastructure and resources; and marketing and publicity. Below, a number of these practicalities are explored to aid in the design process. Several of these considerations are interdependent and will change depending on the clinic model adopted.

Institutional and/or organisational support

Regardless of format, CTE takes a step away from traditional forms of higher education.3 In some law schools, clinical education may already have a presence in the form of a law clinic. In this case, the rationale for introducing a tax clinic becomes easier. However, not all jurisdictions or schools where tax is taught have an existing clinical infrastructure, so you may be creating the clinical infrastructure from scratch (which was the case for many of the Australian Clinics). Some universities have managed to create clinics that hold a mixture of both legal students and commerce students, but this is quite rare and depends on the university structure. Massey discusses some of the hurdles for business schools in Chapter 19.

In most cases, you will need to create a business case for the establishment of a tax clinic and the benefits to the university and students. Massey outlines some recommendations for making a business case in Chapter 19 (particularly in relation to business schools). Remember that clinics have a twofold purpose: to give students real life experience and (where including live clients) to benefit the community. The university’s focus is on the students, so that should be the focus of a business plan. You will therefore need to consider the educational design of your CTE project (discussed further below).

If you have any collaborative partners in the clinic (such as a law firm, accounting firm or tax charity) then it is worth considering whether having a legal agreement to formalise the collaboration would be beneficial. This formalises the responsibilities of both parties and provides a stable framework for the clinic. It will also help gain institutional approval as you have industry bodies participating with you in the clinic.

Tip: Have an extraordinary business case, outline benefits for university, students, community and industry engagement, and explain how you will measure the clinic’s success.

Costs and wider resources

Introducing and running a clinic costs money. You may need initial institutional support to cover these costs, or you may need to seek external funding to cover these costs, depending on the resources available to your institution and the amount of the resources your clinic would need. Depending on the structure of your clinic (and whether it engages in live client work or simulated scenarios), resources to consider are shown in Table 3.1.

If you need external funding for these costs, consider what is available. Sams outlines the difficulties and importance of finding funding for your clinic in Chapter 7. Funding can be sought from your university (have a look and see whether external engagement and community support are strategic priorities for your university) or externally, through education research or teaching grants, private firms, or public authorities.

Table 3.1: Resources and rationale of a tax clinic

Resource

Rationale

Time

Regardless of the clinical model, all tax clinics require the time of the individual introducing them. This time commitment is particularly heavy during the design and implementation of the clinic.

Human

This includes, for example, supervision of the students and wider administrative support. If you are running a live client clinic, who will manage the client queries? Who will allocate cases to the students and supervisors? Quite often, the answer may be you, so this adds to the time commitment of introducing a clinic. If those individuals are not you, then this will potentially introduce a financial cost to the clinic.

Infrastructure

Your clinic will need a room or online platform regardless of its model. If you are adopting a virtual model, consider whether your institutional software is sufficient for the clinic, or whether you will need additional software. Other infrastructure may include:

•   If you are handling live clients, then you will need appropriate customer relationship management (CRM) software to hold their details. There may be other software costs (such as call handling software if you do not have a phone number associated with the space you can use).

•   Depending on how the clients can contact the clinic, you will need an email address and a telephone number. Making calls costs money.

•   You may need to provide hardware, such as laptops or a mobile phone (particularly important to protect the students’ own numbers).

Marketing

If your clinic works with your local community, then you need to let your community know that you are there. While many institutions have internal marketing and press offices, you may need to engage in additional marketing to integrate your pro bono service into the community. Examples include local press, printing leaflets and advertising on social media.

You may consider running a pilot clinic to provide evidence of success to make subsequent funding easier to obtain. The North West Tax Clinic initially ran for three months as a pilot. The Curtin Tax Clinic ran a six-month pilot after receiving internal seed funding from the university. This then allowed the pilot’s outcomes to be shared with the Australian Government, who saw benefits in the work undertaken in the pilot and led to the creation of a National Tax Clinic trial of ten clinics in Australia.

The seed funding was very important to cover the initial start-up costs of the clinic and clinics should try, if possible, to raise funds within the university environment. Another source of funding is donations from former clients who are pleased with the services they received from the clinic in the past – you would need to ensure your university can receive donations of this kind. In some circumstances and jurisdictions, it would not be appropriate to fund a clinic through donations and a clinic should not accept donations from current clients (particularly if your clinic targets low-income individuals).

Tip: Ensure you have prepared a budget that covers all the costs associated with the creation and ongoing running of your clinic; you do not want to be left short of money.

Supervision

Tax may or may not be a regulated profession in some form. For example, in the jurisdictions with an established culture of tax clinics:

1.   United States – tax professionals are regulated by the Internal Revenue Service and in particular Treasury Circular 230, which dictates who may provide tax advice.4 The circular also outlines the duties of a tax adviser and the linked sanctions for non-compliance.

2.   Australia – tax agents are regulated by the Tax Practitioners Board.5 The Board, introduced from 2010, has established an appropriate national regulatory framework and registration system.6

3.   United Kingdom – providing paid tax advice is not a directly regulated profession, which means that anyone could technically practise as a tax adviser. However, most tax agents are a member of a tax professional body.7 These professional bodies regulate the behaviour of their members; there are also some baseline standards for agents expected by HM Revenue and Customs.8 This is in contrast to legal advice, which is regulated by a number of bodies depending on the title used or area of practice.9

4.   Similarly in Ireland, tax advice is not a legally restricted profession although the Irish Tax Institute is the only professional body exclusively dedicated to tax.10

In some jurisdictions, ‘tax advice’ may also be either legal advice or accounting advice – both of which could also be regulated professions. While this regulation may or may not apply to pro bono advice (that is, advice that is not paid for), it is beneficial to see and treat a student tax clinic as a professional undertaking in the field.

This means that undergraduate students cannot, or should not, simply provide free tax advice to members of the public. The common way to overcome this is to employ the supervision of appropriately qualified individuals who can effectively sign off the students’ work. This creates an additional layer of quality assurance and scrutiny within the clinic. This could be the individual designing and running of the clinic if they hold the appropriate qualification and time within their workload.

A number of the clinics discussed in this book recruit volunteer professionals to supervise the students. If your proposed clinic has greater resourcing and support, then you could pay the supervisors for their time. Another approach might be to secure sponsorship from a firm that practices tax; this could take the form of money or time, providing you with the resources to pay your professional volunteers (or a time commitment from the firm).

Thinking about how and what your supervision will look like will help you to recruit any additional supervision before the clinic opens. Things to consider include:

•   Will supervision take place in person, or can the supervisors engage with the students virtually (for example, through CRM software, email, video calls or over the telephone)?

•   What training will you need to provide to any professionals? Low-income taxpayer work can be very different to fee-paying client work.

•   How many supervisors will you recruit and how will this impact the time commitment of each, individual supervisor?

•   How will you verify that they are qualified to supervise the students?

Tip: If you have tax professionals supervising students and working with your clients then ensure they are suitable. They need to be able to work with the students in a teaching/mentoring capacity as well as working with clients who may be different to their fee-paying work. Choosing the right person to begin with can save issues later on.

Insurance

This is important if your clinic will be working with live clients. With advice being provided by students, insurance is a valuable safety net and, indeed, may be required in your jurisdiction. Most institutions will have professional indemnity insurance; it may be that you can write the tax clinic directly into that policy, or you may need to take out separate insurance. A separate insurance policy will come with costs.

When considering the wide range of activities that a university engages in (for instance, live clinical trials on humans or animals and the storage of dangerous materials), a tax clinic is a relatively low-risk activity. This risk is even lower when considering all the safeguards that should be in place: student and professional training, supervision of all work, and support and guidance from the clinic organiser.

Tip: Meet with your university risk team and discuss your tax clinic plans prior to any implementation so that they can review the insurance policies of the university to ensure the activities of the tax clinic would be covered.

Data protection

In a simulated clinic, you will be working with students and their data should be protected in line with your university policy and data protection rules. This becomes more complex if your clinic works with live clients.

To ensure client confidentiality and data protection, you will need to think about how you will store client data in line with the data protection requirements of your jurisdiction. You may need to undertake a risk assessment, consider what software you need to use, as well as specific training for your students and professional volunteers.

You may also have to consider if there are any government regulations that safeguard data protection of taxpayer’s personal information. In Australia, under Tax Practitioners Board policy, you must establish proof of identify of the taxpayer before taking them as a client and any document being forwarded to or on behalf of the client must have their Tax File Number redacted.

Personal data theft is an ongoing risk and tax clinics are not immune to their client’s data being stolen, so it is imperative that tax clinics enforce with all those working within the clinics the importance of not releasing client data to third parties without permission and that only the authorised software and programmes are utilised for client work.

Tip: Meet with your university’s data protection team for guidance on how to correctly safeguard the documents of the tax clinic and do this on a regular basis of at least once a year.

3.4 Clinic design

Clinic model

You will need to decide whether your clinic will be based on simulation or live clients. A number of different models are presented throughout this book (see Table 3.2).

No matter the type of CTE project you are going to be running, you will be creating an experiential learning environment – whether that is live client or simulated. The benefits to both students and the (if applicable) community must be taken into account when designing your tax clinic.

Tip: Think about the type of services you want your CTE project to offer and then build your clinic around those. Having the vision of the goal will assist you in the design process.

Student and supervisor recruitment

You will need to decide on the scale of your project. Public tax education projects may facilitate higher student numbers, as students tend to work in groups. Live client work is restricted by local demand – the more students you have, the more clients you will need to recruit.11 CTE through simulation can be delivered to greater student numbers (depending on your own capacity and ability to supervise the students through this process).

If you are running a live client advice clinic, then you will need appropriate supervisory support. You will want qualified tax professionals to supervise your students. A good place to start is either your own network of contacts or the professional tax bodies in your jurisdiction. They may be able to help you identify individuals or send out an email calling for volunteers through their mailing list. Firms may wish to sponsor a tax education project and may be happy to provide volunteer support as part of this.

Table 3.2: Example clinic design models

Model

Chapter

Outline

Simulated

14

This could include role plays. These engage the students in solving problems through interaction. The more realistic these scenarios are, the more the students will be able to engage with them as a simulated workplace. Vitale and Medlen outline how the Western Sydney University Tax Clinic employs simulation to train students for their live client clinic in Chapter 14. Simulation provides students with development opportunities without the live client interaction; it can also run alongside live client projects as training or additional skill development.

Controversial

11, 15

Lora and Speidel argue that the controversial model allows students to not only gain skills and direct advocacy experience, but also learn habits of reflective, thoughtful practice which will allow them to succeed in any professional context. Fogg explores the role of litigation and benefits that a tax clinic can bring to tax policy in an adversarial system.

Live client

5, 16, 17

Similar to the controversial model, the live client clinic also works with real clients to provide tailored advice for their needs. This could be compliance work rather than advocacy work. For instance, Kayis-Kumar et al. introduce the UNSW tax clinic in Chapter 5; Freudenberg et al. discuss the Griffith Tax Clinic in Chapter 17; Boahen et al.’s clinic is a little different in that their live clients are small businesses: something that is explored in Chapter 16.

Educational

8, 9, 10

These projects focus on educating others about their tax obligations rather than working on a one-to-one basis to resolve tax issues. Bassey and Oluwatofunmi discuss tax clubs and their contribution to public tax education in Chapter 8; Drumbl outlines the benefits of engaging with school students in Chapter 9; and Prasetyo and Khusnaini explore how educational projects can help improve taxpayer compliance in Chapter 10.

There are two methods of securing students to work in the tax clinics: they may be volunteers, or you may offer the clinic as a credit-bearing course in which they enrol into the clinic for a semester or year as part of their studies. Depending on how your clinic is structured within the university will depend on the criteria you may need to have for recruiting students. For example, a law clinic will most likely only recruit law students and a business school running clinics will use business students; the basic requirement is that they have some introductory knowledge from a previously studied taxation unit. It is also beneficial that they have an interest in tax as a subject!

Tip: Students are the face of your tax clinic so ensure you choose wisely when recruiting. Consider whether you will interview students for your CTE project.

Educational design

You will therefore need to consider how a CTE project fits in with the wider curriculum. A tax education project could either be run as an extracurricular activity or could be brought within the curriculum and be made credit bearing.

In Australia, some clinics offer the tax clinics as a credit-bearing unit, but the students still wish to continue to participate in the clinic afterwards as a volunteer. This has worked well in Australia, as the more experienced students can then guide the new students.

Intracurricular clinics can be difficult if a curriculum is already crowded, or if the curriculum is driven by professional accreditation requirements. As students are receiving credit for the work that they do, then this overcomes criticisms that extracurricular pro bono work is effectively free student labour.

Extracurricular clinics provide a greater level of flexibility and can work alongside a crowded curriculum. However, while students will gain a benefit from participating in the clinic (such as greater employability from having the project on their CV), there remains a question whether this is an adequate and appropriate reward for all of their time.

If you bring in your project as an assessed, credit-bearing course (intracurricular), then it is important to reflect on the following:

•   What are the learning outcomes you want from your course? A tax clinic is often not just about learning substantive rules but developing a whole range of soft skills (such as group work, communication and problem solving). Bloom’s taxonomy is useful for reflecting on how these learning outcomes can be drafted to help the students measure their progress. For example, one of the learning outcomes for the STC is: ‘Identify key facts in a given case and critically review their relevance to applicable tax legislation and guidance’.

•   Consider how you are going to assess the students in the project. Depending on the model of the clinic, there are a range of assessment methods at your disposal:

◦   Presentation/poster

◦   Reflective journal

◦   Participation

◦   Evidence portfolio

◦   Reflective essay.

This is not an exhaustive list. It may be the case that this is a very new form of assessment for your students. Thought should be given to assessment literacy and how that assessment will be moderated within your institution.

Whether the project is intra- or extracurricular, you may need to think of the following:

•   Student workshops to train the students in what is possibly a very new style of learning

•   Developing templates to guide the students in filling out forms or drafting letters. If you opt to take a more non-directive approach, then you may rely on templates less.12

A well-designed CTE project will provide students with the opportunities to develop and learn. Broader experiences can also be embedded within the clinic, for example, including student volunteers in professional taxation conferences so they can network with taxation professionals and hear speakers on topical taxation matters; arranging visits to the taxation authority’s offices; and having an occasional social event for the students to celebrate and recognise their achievements.

Tip: No matter the educational design of your clinic, wherever possible immerse students into the taxation profession within your country, look for opportunities constantly.

Integration into community (client recruitment)

As well as education design, it is necessary to think about how the project will be promoted within the community if there is an external facing element.

This could include direct marketing – such as printing and distributing leaflets, engaging with local press or running advertising campaigns on social media. It could also be forging links with local charities who work with potential clients, such as food banks, homeless charities and debt charities. It may be that you have to explain how your project can benefit their clients; tax advice can often be perceived as a problem for rich people, or those who have the means to pay for advice.

Having links with local charities means that you can set up a client referral process. It may also be the case that local firms or practitioners would be happy to refer surplus pro bono work to you as well.

The burden of publicity and marketing often reduces over time. As the reputation of the CTE project increases, word-of-mouth awareness increases and approaches by community organisations and individuals often become more prevalent.

Tip: Ensure that you promote the tax clinic and its services – have a leaflet (physical or digital) to distribute easily. The more people who know about it, the more word will spread.

3.5 Concluding remarks

Designing and introducing a tax education project can seem a daunting task. This chapter provides a starting point for some of the things you would need to think about when introducing a tax education project at your own institution or organisation. Tax education projects do not need to be a live client or one-to-one client project: simulated or education-focused projects may be less resource intensive and a good starting point for diversifying tax teaching or improving tax education in your local community.

The chapters that follow in the remainder of Part I begin to outline the rationale and importance of introducing a CTE project. While tax can often be perceived as a problem for the rich (especially when we discuss tax planning and tax avoidance), there is a clear need and demand for both pro bono tax advice and for greater levels of tax literacy in our communities.

3.6 Key reading

David Krathwohl, ‘A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview’, Theory into Practice 41 (2002): 212.

  1. *   Senior Lecturer in Tax Law, University of Edinburgh. Founder of the Scottish Tax Clinic, co-founder of the North West Tax Clinic.

  2. 1   For a consideration of the regulatory framework of law clinics, see Linden Thomas and Nick Johnson, The Clinical Legal Education Handbook (University of London Press, 2020).

  3. 2   Adapted from Lydia Bleasdale et al., ‘Law Clinics: What, Why and How?’ in Linden Thomas and Nick Johnson, The Clinical Legal Education Handbook (University of London Press, 2020), 8.

  4. 3   For a consideration of pedagogical theory, see Chapter 13.

  5. 4   United States of America: Treasury Department Circular No. 230 (Rev. 6-2014), §10.3.

  6. 5   Australia: Tax Agent Services Act 2009, s.14; <www.tpb.gov.au> accessed 15 July 2022.

  7. 6   Australian Taxation Office, ‘The Regulation of Tax Practitioners by the Tax Practitioners Board’ (2013), available at <www.anao.gov.au/sites/default/files/201213%20Audit%20Report%20No%2033.pdf> accessed 15 July 2022.

  8. 7   Kantar Public and HMRC, ‘Role of Professional Bodies in the Regulation of Tax Agents’ (September 2018), available at <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/802570/Role_of_professional_bodies_in_the_regulation_of_tax_agents-HMRC_research_report.pdf> accessed 15 July 2022.

  9. 8   <www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-the-standard-for-agents/hmrc-the-standard-for-agents> accessed 15 July 2022.

  10. 9   <www.gov.uk/government/publications/professions-regulated-by-law-in-the-uk-and-their-regulators/uk-regulated-professions-and-their-regulators> accessed 15 July 2022.

  11. 10   <https://taxinstitute.ie/about-us/> accessed 18 August 2022.

  12. 11   Sometimes this does not work out: see Amy Lawton, ‘Lemons to Lemonade: Experiential Learning by Trial and Error’, The Law Teacher 55 (2021): 511–27.

  13. 12   See Chapter 15.

Annotate

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