ACCOUNTING STUDENTS' LIKELIHOOD OF COMPLIANCE WITH TAX PREPARATION STANDARDS

Accounting professionals have faced increasing pressures from regulators and the public in the wake of corporate accounting scandals a few years ago. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has emphasized the need for accountants to focus on their responsibilities to the public. In the areas of tax preparation and tax planning, these responsibilities are framed within the framework of Statements on Standards for Tax Services (SSTS). These standards, effective since 2000, represent enforceable codes of conduct by CPAs in tax return preparation and tax planning.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate accounting students' likelihood of following these tax standards. Accounting students represent future CPAs and their perception of tax standards, after being exposed to them, can give an insight into their perception of the importance of such standards. Hume, Larkins, and Iyer (1999) investigated tax professionals' compliance with Statements on Responsibilities in Tax Practice (SRTP), which were advisory in nature and were superseded by the enforceable SSTS. However, in Hume et al. (1999), one possible limitation of the results was that CPAs may not have been familiar with SRTP since they were only suggested guidelines. In the current study, accounting students are divided into two groups: One group received specific instruction on SSTS and another group did not. The study examines the likelihood of compliance with SSTS and investigates whether demographic factors such as gender, age and class grade have an effect on students' compliance.