Though I usually expect students to learn tax problem processes by following how a problem is solved in class, noting the sequence of the analysis and identifying the relevant and necessary information, there are some instances in which I provide the process to the students in the form of a checklist, or what could better be called a step-by-step process list. In the basic tax course, for example, I do this with the overall process of computing the tax liability of a minor child. In Partnership Taxation, I do this for sales of partnership interests, partnership operating distributions, partnership liquidating distributions, and for some others.

The partnership checklists are long, in some instances requiring 15 major steps, some of which have as many as 6 sub-steps. Sequence is essential. Doing something out of order makes things a mess. For example, the taxable year must be brought up to date before other steps are analyzed. Yet students continue to jump to the first issue they see, which usually is the section 751 analysis, and they end up missing parts of the analysis and in some instances reaching erroneous conclusions. What is lacking is what I call academic discipline. The checklist must take precedence over the impulse that strikes the student when reading the problem.

One of the most serious difficulties I have noticed over the years is the application of the wrong checklist. Students sometimes use the sale checklist when the transaction is a distribution, and vice versa. The first step in the checklist, incidentally, is "What is it? Is it a sale? Is it a distribution?" I repeatedly try to hammer home the importance of using the appropriate checklist. Every semester 10 to 20 percent of the students use the wrong checklist. It kills their grade. For a few years, in the early part of this decade, the percentage of students using the wrong checklist declines. "Progress!" I thought to myself. I thought too soon. Three semesters ago, the percentage of students using the wrong checklist increased. But that isn’t the worst part.

Much to my surprise, last fall I noticed a few students who didn’t even bother to use any checklist. Then, this past spring, it became an epidemic. "Checklist? We don’t need no stinkin’ checklist!" What was written can best be described as disorganized snippets of disconnected repetition of rules or facts, smatterings of analysis relevant or not relevant to the question, and huge omissions from the sequences that should have been followed. The lack of academic discipline evidenced by these answers is overwhelming. Are these the same students who complain that they haven’t been told what the answers are? I do not know. Are these the same students who report investing one or two hours a week in a course for which my strongly recommended out-of-classroom study time is four to eight hours per week? I do not know. What I do know is that these are not the students earning A, B+, and B grades. If they were to earn the same grade in their other courses that they earn by totally disregarding my advice and instructions with respect to the use of checklists that I give them, they would not graduate. That would be good, because no client is well served by a practitioner who uses the wrong checklist or, worse, doesn’t use one at all and overlooks most of what needs attention.
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