Curriculum

This course is designed as a second course in taxation of income in Canada. The primary focus is on Federal taxation as provided in the Canadian Income Tax Act. Occasional reference will be made to provincial taxation and the HST. The emphasis within Federal Taxation is on the calculation of corporate taxes, as determined by the calculation of business income for tax purposes. This includes the understanding and determination of capital gains and losses, capital cost allowance, capital cost recapture and terminal losses. The tax consequences of rollovers, corporate reorganizations, partnerships, and trusts will also be covered. This material will be taught using comprehensive case analysis, group discussions and court cases.

This course provides an in-depth coverage of IT auditing and internal controls' topics, as well as discussion and analysis of recent developments in Third Party Audit Reporting, Sarbanes Oxley and Bill 198 legislation, current IT issues, and the overall relationship between IT and accounting developments. Lectures are supported by using class discussion, examples taken from practice, authoritative pronouncements and case studies. The ability to analyze issues and communicate recommendations from case studies is considered a critical element within the accounting profession. Case studies through group work, in class examples, and as part of final grade evaluations represent a critical element of this course.

In this course, students will develop their financial accounting and assurance skills in preparation for writing the CPA Common Final Examination. The course will emphasize issue identification, case writing, and areas of integration between financial accounting and assurance areas of competency.

In today’s environment, professional accountants are being asked to address a bewildering range of problems containing multiple issues that can only be addressed from an integrated perspective. Problems and demands for services in the business world are rarely confined to isolated silos such as auditing, financial accounting, finance, management accounting, information systems and taxation but have implications across these silos and are embedded in the context of broader management issues. Hence, the course features extensive investigation into how a professional accountant can identify and prioritize issues that draw on multiple technical competencies to develop solutions for practical business problems that cannot be dealt with by concentrating on any one technical competency by itself. Further, the student is expected to use their general business background knowledge (i.e. the enabling competencies) to put the issues and problems into an appropriate managerial or professional reporting relationship including appropriate consideration of ethical principles.