Five Questions With: John McQuilkin

John McQuilkin is an associate professor of accounting at Roger Williams University. / COURTESY ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY
John McQuilkin is an associate professor of accounting at Roger Williams University. / COURTESY ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY

John McQuilkin is an associate professor of accounting at Roger Williams University. During tax season, the school’s accounting students must take turns preparing taxes through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program at the Federal Hill House in Providence. McQuilkin talks with Providence Business News about how this effort is symbiotic.
PBN: Please tell our readers a little bit about how you incorporate the VITA program into your accounting major program.
MCQUILKIN:
Roger Williams University’s VITA experience is unique among undergraduate accounting programs in that student participation in VITA is a required, not voluntary, component of our accounting program’s two required tax classes. The reason we make it a requirement is that we want students to get out from behind a desk and experience real clients and understand what it takes to interact with many different types of people.
One of RWU’s core values is “… to provide an educational environment that bridges theory and practice, enhancing the ability of students to fulfill their potential and to contribute to society.”
Starting the last week of January in the spring term all students are required to spend at least 15 hours interviewing clients and prepare VITA tax returns. Some students also opt to put in 135 hours to meet their accounting internship requirement. Again, these are not optional hours: They are required for course completion.
We are fortunate at RWU in that two semesters of tax are required; many programs only include one semester. We are also fortunate in that we are located in close proximity to a large metropolitan center, Providence, which has a strong established VITA program where all our students, approximately 35-40 per semester, can be effectively utilized. A third factor is that RWU emphasizes experiential learning and thus I have full administrative support. To my knowledge we are the only undergraduate accounting program in the country that requires VITA participation.
PBN: Are students given training ahead of time, or is it a learning-through-practice requirement?
MCQUILKIN:
In light of RWU’s core “experiential” value, RWU’s accounting majors are required to take individual income tax in the fall semester and in the spring take a second tax course in partnerships, corporations and advanced tax topics. The objective of the fall semester is to cover federal individual tax material that the students will be tested on as part of the Certified Public Accounting Exam, an extremely difficult exam that our majors are encouraged to take to become a CPA. This same material must be mastered by the students to a somewhat lesser extent to pass the IRS’ basic, intermediate and advanced required VITA Exams, a requisite for our students to participate in VITA in the spring.
So, in the fall semester all tax students are required to pass the three VITA exams in addition to a short VITA Ethics Exam. They are also required to attend six hours of hands-on training on the IRS’ tax software, Taxwise, in the classroom, where they are applying concepts learned in class to preparing returns.
PBN: How did you get connected with the Federal Hill House and how does the partnership benefit them?
MCQUILKIN:
Initially, for convenience, we thought to utilize our students locally in Bristol adjacent to campus. We quickly ran into the logistical problem of utilizing all students – there simply weren’t sufficient VITA clients in Bristol to accomplish this. As a result I contacted Meg Chevalier at the IRS who is in charge of VITA program for the state and she put me in touch with the Federal Hill House and their United Way affiliations. The partnership has worked extremely well as Roshni G. Darnal Senior Corps director at Federal Hill House also takes care of all the scheduling logistics serving as a clearing house between the affiliate centers and our RWU students. Providence has the clients and we have the qualified, certified students to help them.
PBN: How is it beneficial to the students?
MCQUILKIN:
The accounting profession, specifically the American Institute of Certificated Public Accountants is very concerned with paradigms of accounting education. Specifically they are concerned that students are not developing “soft skills” including client contact and application of course material. It is one thing to cram and pass a classroom exam. It is another thing to master and retain learned material to interview a real client and prepare their tax return. Most CPA tax internships limit students to inputting client information into tax software. The VITA experience in interviewing and working with clients in preparing returns is not the norm.
Beside professional experiential exposure, there is another huge student take-away that was not originally anticipated. Students are required to write both pre- and post-reflection reviews on their experience. Obviously, most students are somewhat apprehensive in interviewing clients and preparing tax returns. The thing that wasn’t anticipated was that students fear working with people who are different than them: social/demographic, income level, racially, ethnically, religious, language, sexual orientation, etc. Some of our students have never been exposed to people different than them and are not that comfortable with it and therefore if given the option would most likely opt out. This is why the program is mandatory and not voluntary.
PBN: What sort of feedback do you get from students who go through the real-life experience?
MCQUILKIN:
Virtually all the student feedback, once they’ve had the client interaction and prepared returns, has been positive. They have faced their professional and interpersonal fears and have grown. The increase in their professional confidence, and development of interpersonal soft skills is something that could never be replicated in the classroom. In many cases, the experience has assisted them in obtaining their first professional job out of college. The student’s involvement in VITA also encourages dynamic classroom discussion in our spring course as they come back with their “VITA stories.” The lightbulb goes on in their heads. “Oh, that’s what you were trying to get across to me in the fall.”
The bottom line is they relate back that they really enjoy helping people. And, that tax is cool. Isn’t that from an accounting professor’s perspective what life is all about?

No posts to display