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International Handbook on Clinical Tax Education: Chapter 6 Engagement in the community

International Handbook on Clinical Tax Education
Chapter 6 Engagement in the community
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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 6 Engagement in the community

Amy Lawton, Annette Morgan, David Massey and Donovan Castelyn*

6.1 Key findings

Not all clinical tax education (CTE) projects need to have a community-facing element. Simulated projects, an example of which is covered in Chapter 14, can also provide an invaluable opportunity for students to develop broader skills and bring the subject of tax alive.

Where there is a community-facing element to a CTE project, careful consideration of the stakeholders needs to take place. A tax clinic needs clients and integrating a service into the community is an important step in making a live clinic sustainable.

6.2 Introduction

When the North West Tax Clinic was launched in early 2020, attempts were made to reach out to local charities to identify referral pathways into the clinic. Both staff and students made phone calls to foodbanks, homeless charities and debt charities. A surprising reaction to the clinic services was: ‘We help people with little or no money, why should we need to refer them to a tax clinic? Thank you for your call but we do not think we will need your services.’ There was an assumption that tax problems were for the rich and that when we think of tax, we think of tax planning and tax avoidance.

Yet both Riches and Karis-Kumar et al. have highlighted that this is not the case.1 Tax and poverty are closely interconnected and what emerges is a myriad of issues that specifically impact those on low incomes. High levels of complexity and low levels of understanding mean that individuals are often behind (or have not engaged at all) with their tax obligations.

Tax clinics are one way to positively bridge the gap between tax complexity, low levels of understanding and our community. Yet, tax clinics can take many forms: they can support compliance, advocate for change or educate.2

Not all clinics will work with clients – such as simulated clinics – and will not engage with local communities. It is therefore important to consider the purpose and mission of the clinical tax project you wish to introduce. This chapter and the chapters that follow specifically explore a community-facing element of CTE.

6.3 The external stakeholders in CTE

Working with live clients or public education projects both introduce a community element to a project. This has both advantages and disadvantages: (+) your project will engage with and support the local community of your institution/ organisation; (−) time and resources are needed to integrate a clinical tax project into the community.

Supporting your local community

It can be difficult and intimidating to engage with a tax system, especially as someone on a low income. As Riches highlights in Chapter 4, being a low-income individual often intersects with wider vulnerability markers, meaning that those a low-income taxpayer clinic would help are some of the most marginalised taxpayers in our communities.

Positive impacts that a clinical project can have include:

•   Resolving specific taxpayer issues – such as submitting (or filing) tax returns or representing them in their tax dispute

•   Educating individuals or groups on the tax system and their tax obligations

•   Identifying common difficulties faced by taxpayers and advocating for policy change.

A clinic does not have to engage with all of these activities, but an activity may lead to multiple positive impacts. For example, a clinic that focuses on compliance work will resolve taxpayer issues by submitting tax returns but could also educate and empower that individual by walking them through the process and clearly explaining the rules.

Beyond the community benefits, external engagement is now seen as a positive, and sometimes a strategic priority, in the higher education sector. In the UK, for example, the Knowledge Exchange Framework provides a structure to measure knowledge exchange in universities. Knowledge exchange is defined as follows: ‘Higher Education Institutions, such as universities, teach students and undertake research that creates new and useful knowledge. But they also work with many different types of partner to ensure that this knowledge can be used for the benefit of the economy and society – this is known as knowledge exchange.’3

In Australia, a number of institutions now have knowledge exchange and enterprise units to support knowledge exchange. This is known under different labels in different jurisdictions, such as knowledge transfer in Ireland,4 but the principle that universities should not sit on knowledge is a growing trend. Knowledge exchange is not a university-unique priority: organisations around the world are engaging with it.5

This means that the activities (and any subsequent research, especially if published in professional or community outputs)6 of a clinical tax project could count as knowledge exchange. This would add strength to a business case for introducing a clinical tax project with client or public education work. Even if knowledge exchange is not formally a strategic priority in your jurisdiction, a client tax clinic has lots of measurable outputs, such as:

•   Number of clients served and their demographics (which may help in research on how your tax system impacts taxpayers).

•   Number and type of action taken in clinic. This could include, for example, the number of tax returns submitted, guidance letters drafted or appeals submitted. It could also include the number of educational workshops put on by an educational project.

•   The financial benefits of your project. This could include:

◦   Any actual money saved through, for example, successful appeals or just by getting the tax submissions right

◦   A time-equivalent in pro bono hours. Your volunteers and students will all be giving their time; this could be expressed in hours or in a monetary equivalent (for example, sector average hourly rates).

Becoming part of the local community

The benefits of working with our local communities are clear. However, a fully integrated tax clinic service does not materialise overnight. The North West Tax Clinic did not have any clients for its first month, providing important learning opportunities and demonstrating that just setting up a free tax clinic does not mean that your local community will be aware of the service.7

As discussed in Chapter 3 (‘How to set up a tax clinic’), setting up a clinic takes time and resources. In many ways, engaging with live clients and public education is a far greater undertaking as it requires marketing, professional indemnity insurance and greater infrastructure (such as appointment rooms or phone lines). This comes with a cost that would need to be covered by your institution or external funding.

6.4 Concluding remarks

The chapters that follow in Part II all consider the community-facing aspect of clinical tax projects. This includes the importance of listening to the community that your project will be serving (Sams, Chapter 7). This will allow you to tailor your project and adapt as you learn more about the individuals you are helping.

Some of the community benefits of these projects are also explored in more detail. The educational benefits of working with the community are discussed by Bassey and Oluwtofunmi, who explore how a tax club in Nigeria has helped to improve tax awareness. Drumbl discusses the Washington and Lee University Tax Clinic, which, unlike many clinics that provide support to individual taxpayers, engages in educational outreach projects with schools. Similarly, Prasetyo and Khusnaini also discuss how workshops on bookkeeping and marketing are helping individuals to navigate the Indonesian tax system and improving taxpayer compliance.

Broader positive impacts are explored by Fogg, who discusses how tax clinics can influence tax policy through litigation, involvement in policy proposals and by commenting on systemic problems with tax administration. Finally, Wood considers some of the most marginalised taxpayers in jurisdictions: those in prison. Wood explores how tax clinics can help support the most marginalised groups in society.

  1. *   Amy Lawton, Senior Lecturer in Tax Law, University of Edinburgh. Founder of the Scottish Tax Clinic, co-founder of the North West Tax Clinic; Annette Morgan, Lecturer, Curtin Law School, co-founder Curtin Tax Clinic; David Massey, former lecturer in taxation, University of Central Lancashire, co-founder North West Tax Clinic; Donovan Castelyn, Senior Industry Fellow, Senior Lecturer, University of Tasmania, co-founder Curtin Tax Clinic.

  2. 1   Chapters 4 and 5.

  3. 2   See Chapter 3, Section 3.4, for a table outlining different models and the respective chapters they are discussed in.

  4. 3   Knowledge Exchange Framework, <https://kef.ac.uk/about> accessed 3 August 2022.

  5. 4   Irish Universities Association, <www.iua.ie/for-researchers/knowledge-transfer/> accessed 3 August 2022.

  6. 5   See <www.worldbank.org/en/programs/paset/brief/knowledge-exchange> accessed 3 August 2022.

  7. 6   See Chapter 18, which outlines a research roadmap for clinical tax education.

  8. 7   For an account of the North West Tax Clinic and its difficulties in recruiting clients, see Amy Lawton, ‘Lemons to Lemonade: Experiential Learning by Trial and Error’, The Law Teacher 55 (2021): 511.

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