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issues Material Type: Notes; Professor: Haq; Class: Governmental and Institutional Accounting; Subject: Accounting; University: Florida International University; Term: Summer 2015;
Typology: Study notes
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Instructions: You are the tax manager and have assigned the same task to two different interns. Read the two tax research memos provided which address the same facts. Critique each memo offering recommendations on improvements if any in order to address the issues more clearly. Be as specific as possible and restrict yourself to only offering constructive criticism. If you only had one position available who would you hire? The author of Memo # 1 or Memo # 2? Please refer to these files: Tax Memo #1 & Tax Memo # Tax Memo 1 If I had to review this memo the first thing I would recommend to change is the format of the writing. I would start with: To: File From: Intern 1 Re: Bountiful Snow, Inc. (Tax Year: 2010) This way the beginning of the memo is better presented. Second, I would restate the facts in a form of paragraph to provide better complete statements of the facts. I would go and read the facts again and gather all the relevant information to enrich the statements that are on bullets. This will help the next person that will read the memo to better understand the case and the issues involved in there. One of the most important points in making a research memo is to clearly state the facts. If they are not precise and concise, misinterpretation can occur. Next, I would recommend him to restate each issue in a form of a complete question, and to write a conclusion after each issue stated and before the analysis. For example: Issue Conclusion of that Issue Analysis and support of that issue that helped me to determine my conclusion This way the reader can better understand the analysis of that conclusion. Now, evaluating the content of the memo, I would make the following recommendations:
I would go to the facts and restate them trying to gathering all the information that is relevant for the reader and that can help in making an analysis and a conclusion. In this memo, the facts are too vague, and they do not implicit enough information. I would redo the issues again and try to make them the most clearly as possible. They are a little of bit difficult to understand at this moment. I would recommend him to be more specific in writing each issue. Also, I think that the major important issues are not all in there. I think that the conclusions should be more specific and not too long. He should precise more the conclusions. The analysis at this moment is difficult to read and understand. I would recommend make a more deep research regarding the issues, and make a more clear analysis of the conclusion he determined. Tax Memo 2 I think that the tax memo 2 is well organized and better to understand than memo 1. It follows the correct format starting with the headings, in the correct way as explained before ( To: From: Re: ). The facts are well described in a form of paragraph which best capture the reader’s attention. The potential facts were clearly explained. The issues are in a form of question and expressed clearly and unambiguously. Also, they are followed by a conclusion before the analysis which is better to understand. The analyses are well supported with some starting first with the code section which demonstrates the research made. Although the memo has some grammatical mistakes, it is well organized and presented which is appreciated. Since the first moment you start reading it, you feel comfortable and willing to read the rest of it. The recommendations I would tell him to do are: to fix the few grammar mistakes, and synthesize more the analysis of ach issue to avoid redundancy. Overall, it was a good tax research where the facts were well stated, the issues were well described and analyzed with adequate support for the conclusions. Conclusion If I had only just one position available I would choose the intern of tax memo 2. This intern has demonstrated the effort and commitment put into writing this memo in order for the reader to understand it.