Penn Acct 405 – Ethics Writing Assignment

Penn StateAccounting 405Tax 1, Spring 2017Ethics Writing Assignment: Practicing Research to Writing Writing assignment 1:1. Review the Pennsylvania Writing Assessment Domain Scoring Guide available to youin your course handouts in Canvas; noting the definition of each domain and thescaling of quality in each domain. Observe how your grading rubric ties into the PAWriting Assessment Domain Scoring Guide. Please keep in mind the standard of careexpected of you as a tax professional. Every document you write should be writtenprofessionally (including tweets, text messages, emails, blogs, memos, letters, etc.).Why is that? Bottom line is you never know who will see what you write. Your boss,your future boss, your spouse, the newspaper, the courts if litigation ensues, are allexamples of who might end up reading what you write, whether you intended thedocument for the audience or not.2. Draft a brief, well written memorandum to your client in good format (See IRACtemplate) that answers this question: Can you sign the return with this tax positionincluded or not? If you can sign the return incorporating that tax position, are thereany corollary actions you should take? If you decide you can’t, what should youadvise your client/friend is an appropriate course of action?3. Here your background information: You are a new manager and you brought in a$150,000 individual income tax engagement on a referral from a friend that is the taxdirector at a major client of your firm. Your quality reviewer seems to have someissues with deducting the charitable contribution of the development rights (qualifiedconservation contribution) associated with the real estate near a golf course the newclient owns. Your client has valued those rights at $39,000,000 and he wants to deductthe full amount from his income in the year you are preparing the return. Due to arepurchase clause in the contribution agreement, your firm’s quality reviewer says theclient’s tax return position has a likelihood of surviving IRS examination of a 1 in 4chance; rising at best to a 35% chance of surviving a challenge by the IRS. The factthat this new client is contemplating running for President of the United States hasfurther raised the reviewer’s anxiety.4. Additional guidance to consider for your memorandum: Your memorandum must bein good form (Use IRAC template as a format.) that identifies what the issues are andhow you should address those issue(s) for your client: Using the facts andcircumstances noted above, your memorandum should address (at a minimum)a. A recitation of your facts and circumstances and the question(s) as you haveclarified them. Additionally, you must cite the relevant authorities usingBluebook citation method. You should analyze those authorities for the Penn StateAccounting 405Tax 1, Spring 2017 purpose of applying those authorities to answer your question(s), andconclude with a clear statement of what professional standards require you todo. You conclusions should also provide your client with a recommendedcourse of action.b. Edit your memo using the “PA Writing Assessment Domains Scoring Guide”.When you are satisfied you have “4” levels of writing in each domain, submityour memorandum and table of authorities to the drop box. Save your fileusing this nomenclature: yourlastname405ethicsmemoSP16.docxc. You must complete a table of authorities (“TOA”) (see the template under“Student Resources”) as a means to document and analyze the authorities youresearch. You are expected to document your thinking in the TOA in such afashion that drafting your memorandum is largely a cut and paste job fromyour TOA. Remember how to use the TOA:i. Complete the heading information; especially the keywords you planto use to search the BNA, CCH Intelliconnect, RIA Checkpoint DataBase or other sources. Consider keywords like “substantial andauthority”, more likely than not” or “substantial understatement”.ii. Put the information necessary to prepare a complete citation usingHarvard Legal (Bluebook) citation methods (See the PS Librarysystem web page for help.) in the “Citation” column.iii. Citable material is documented in the“Research/Facts/Observation/Legal Precedent” column,iv. Your thinking and analysis (What does it mean to your researchquestion?) is documented in the “Application” column, andv. Your instructor will be your reviewer for this assignment and he or shewill check your citations and thinking in the TOA as they thinkappropriate.vi. This project is not long enough to require a detailed outline so do notworry about putting outline references in the “Reference” column.d. At a minimum your research and analysis should include a review andconsideration of:i. IRC Section 6662 and specifically Treasury Regulation 1.6662-4(d)(What penalties may be assessed against your client.)ii. IRC Sections 6694 and 6695 (What penalties might be assessedagainst you or your firm.)iii. AICPA SSTS #1iv. Since you are located in Pennsylvania, the PA CPA Act.v. While ASC 740 applies to your client, you can assume the financialstatements are already finished and issued. You therefore do not needto address the financial reporting issues.e. When you have finished your memo and edited it, please submit your memoto the drop box using the above protocol/nomenclature in 4b, then submit yourPage 2 Penn StateAccounting 405Tax 1, Spring 2017 TOA. Use this nomenclature for the TOA file:yourlastname405TOASP17.docx.5. Your submissions will be graded using the published rubric.Keep in mind the CPA firm leveraging of expertise and keep your memorandum to aminimum. A partner does not have time to read superfluous information at their rate perhour and your clients will not want to pay your rate per hour for time you waste doinganything other than just getting the answer to the question. This writing assignment isworth 100 points.Write well!!!! Page 3