The 2005 Deloitte/American Taxation Association (ATA) Innovation in Tax Education Award of $5,000 was won by Dr. John Everett, professor of Accounting, and three colleagues, Dr. William Duncan, Arizona State University-West, Dr. Sharon Lassar, Florida Atlantic University and Dr. Walfrid Lassar, Florida International University. The award was presented on August 8 during the American Accounting Association annual meeting in San Francisco. The title of their winning entry was “Second Chance for Depreciation: A Case Study Analyzing Tax Planning Opportunities After Disposition.” The objective of the national competition is to encourage creativity and experimentation with new and unusual ideas.

Dr. Everett is a former President of the ATA, and received the 2004 ATA Lifetime Service Achievement Award.


Summary of Winning Project (text of introduction by Sandy Callaghan of Texas Christian University at Annual Luncheon):

This year’s winning entry is a self-guided web-based tax research case study that has been designed for an advanced tax class.

The case includes a series of ten practice sets. It begins with the basics and adds complexity with each successive exercise. The step-by-step approach emphasizes a "learn a little and then use it" approach which, coupled with the inclusion of the interactive feedback that a web based system makes possible, assures that each layer of technical material and increasingly sophisticated analysis is mastered before the next is attempted. The materials offer an opportunity for the instructor to customize the level of difficulty by adding elements or omitting some guidance in the assignments.

As the student gains sophistication in the understanding of primary authority, the case introduces interpretive and legislative regulatory authority, the influence of the courts, and conflicts between jurisdictions. This complex interrelationship is demonstrated as the practice sets track the development of two related but separate areas of the tax law whose convergence culminates in the revelation of an almost certainly unintended tax planning opportunity.

The penultimate practice sets introduce ethical issues of professional responsibility, due care, confidentiality, disclosure and conflicts of interest faced by practitioners within a firm. The case concludes with an exercise that utilizes the spreadsheet skills and understanding of the technical rules developed thus far to create a tax planning model and draft a recommendation.

The winning entry will be posted on the ATA website soon and is currently available on the web at http://www.soa.fau.edu/taxcase/

Dr. John Everett