Elle Ross had been working at accounting firm Frazier & Deeter for more than five years and had passed the CPA Exam, but needed a few more course credit hours to receive her CPA license. Instead of taking just a couple of classes to meet that requirement, she earned a Master of Taxation (MTX) from Robinson. Frazier & Deeter subsidizes the tuition for employees. The help with offsetting the cost made her decision to enroll a no-brainer.
Ross got more than required credit hours out of the program. For starters, she acquired new knowledge of RIA Checkpoint, a tax database she uses on a daily basis.
“I came to understand how the software sorts information, and discovered tons of tools I didn’t even know existed,” she said. “Now I can use the software so much more efficiently.”
All MTX faculty possess relevant industry experience and bring the curriculum to life. In Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders, Ross and her classmates prepared a tax provision from scratch. The instructor provided a narrative of a mock corporation’s stock options, accruals, and purchase of meals and entertainment; based on facts like that, Ross estimated how much the company would owe in taxes at year’s end.
“Our professor emulated what we’d do on the job instead of just talking about it,” Ross said. “The project was really time-consuming but also super applicable for anyone who decides to go into corporate taxation.”
In Issues of Individual Tax, Ross researched past tax cases in order to defend a position to the IRS. The problem? A fictitious client wanted to claim a horsing hobby as a business venture—a common form of tax fraud among the wealthy. In Tax Research, Ross worked on another highly contested tax issue: deciphering between employees and independent contractors. Companies withhold incomes taxes, Social Security, and Medicare from wages paid to the former but not the latter. Attorneys sit on the faculty as well and lectured on landmark tax cases, helping Ross understand the reasoning behind tax laws.
After she enrolled in the MTX program, Ross was promoted from tax supervisor to tax manager.
“At most firms, you can’t be promoted to tax manager unless you’re a CPA,” she said. “And at Frazier & Deeter, Robinson’s Master of Taxation is a well-respected program. It’s like a badge of honor.”