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International Handbook on Clinical Tax Education: Chapter 1 Introduction

International Handbook on Clinical Tax Education
Chapter 1 Introduction
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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 1 Introduction

Amy Lawton with Annette Morgan, David Massey and Donovan Castelyn

Tax education is a cornerstone of tax compliance. Previous studies have clearly linked education with how likely a taxpayer is to pay their taxes (and the right amount of tax).1 Research also shows that there is a disconnect between taxpayers understanding their tax obligations: in other words, levels of tax understanding are low.2 Beyond the objective interest of a state in improving tax compliance, and so increasing the revenues collected to fund public services, low levels of education can have devastating impacts on our taxpayers. Tax clinics have shown us that the most vulnerable taxpayers can face crippling tax debts as a result of not understanding their tax obligations.

Tax education has the potential, therefore, to change lives.

This book focuses on one element of tax education: clinical tax education (CTE). CTE builds on the rich and strong foundations of clinical legal education (CLE). It is difficult to define: ‘Treating a clinic as a cathedral – defining very narrowly what its architecture must look like, what resources and materials it must have available, who may enter and what activities must be conducted therein – is to discourage the maverick creative spark which is so often the very hallmark of CLE.’3

Instead, Bleasdale et al. refer to CLE as a bazaar: with stalls of different shapes and sizes; some stalls are there permanently while others pop up and pack away. This metaphor for CLE is apt as it recognises the many shapes of clinical education. This book adopts Bleasdale et al.’s approach to defining CTE as broadly as possible and by altering their two common denominators for the purposes of tax:4

1.   The provision of a tax service (actual or simulated)

2.   The participation of university students, acting under professional supervision where necessary.

It should be noted here that the tax profession is not regulated in the same way as the legal profession. There are therefore some practical differences between CLE and CTE. With that in mind, this book will present a range of different clinical tax projects with different designs. While most of the CTE projects discussed in this book help live clients (tax clinics), others do not, and some harness the power of public education.

Tax clinics within educational organisations (and particularly universities) are a new phenomenon worldwide. Notwithstanding that the USA commenced its Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC) regime in the mid-1970s, it was not until 2018 that Australia became the second country to start a national tax clinic programme, with other countries, such as the UK and Ireland, to follow soon after. Tax systems are unique to the jurisdiction, meaning that each tax system works slightly differently, with different rules and processes that taxpayers need to follow.

Despite these differences, we can find some common components needed to establish a CTE project as defined above. Those components include clinic design, funding (or wider resources), student participation, government, educational institutions’ involvement and ensuring compliance with the relevant regulations. We can also reflect on the prior experiences of others already working in CTE, to carry those experiences and lessons forward to future CTE projects.

This handbook builds on the success of The Clinical Legal Education Handbook to provide an international lens through which to analyse CTE. It should be read alongside The Clinical Legal Education Handbook, which provides a comprehensive checklist of what to consider when considering a clinic in a regulated profession (regardless of the UK-specific, legal context). This handbook provides a valuable resource, or a ‘how to’, for those contemplating a clinical tax project. However, this book also draws on original research by our contributors to consider wider themes around CTE.

In particular, this book explores the rationale behind tax clinics and the need for more CTE projects. It also explores the community-facing element that is common (although not necessary) in CTE, considering some of the benefits that such projects can have for taxpayers, tax law and tax policy. Student involvement is one of our common denominators in defining CTE, and the pedagogical research presented in this book analyses some of the benefits to student involvement in CTE. CTE environments can also provide the opportunity for further research into both our education practice and how our tax systems impact the most vulnerable taxpayers. Broader themes such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen throughout, providing an insight into the adaptability of CTE.

Overall, this handbook seeks to provide guidance on the introduction and delivery of CTE projects of all shapes and sizes. We are grateful for the collaborative efforts of law and taxation academics all over the world, who have contributed to this book, the first of its kind on CTE. In line with our broad approach to defining CTE, we wish to acknowledge that this handbook is to be used as guidance and does not present the only ways to incorporate CTE. A one-size-fits-all approach is neither appropriate nor desirable when considering how to innovate tax teaching in universities.

The handbook consists of four parts. Part I: The tax clinic; Part II: Tax clinics and our communities; Part III: Tax clinics and our students; and Part IV: Moving forwards. We hope that you find this handbook of value and it helps you with informed decisions in relation to offering tax clinical education within your educational organisations.

If you have bought this handbook as a physical copy, then the royalties are being donated to UK tax charity TaxAid UK. You can find out more about the work that this charity does in Chapter 4, where Tina Riches outlines common issues faced by low-income taxpayers in the UK.

  1. 1   Giulia Mascagni and Fabrizio Santoro, ‘What Is the Role of Taxpayer Education in Africa?’ (International Centre for Tax and Development, April 2018), <www.ictd.ac/publication/what-is-the-role-of-taxpayer-education-in-africa/> accessed 1 October 2022.

  2. 2   See Chapter 5 for further information. See, for example, Deloitte, ‘The Tax Education Gap: Majority of the UK Don’t Understand Personal Tax’ (2019), available at <www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/press-releases/articles/the-tax-education-gap-majority-of-the-uk-dont-understand-personal-tax.html> accessed 1 October 2022.

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

  4. 4   Ibid.

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