|
Not-so-secret agents swarm CMU classes
Simulations profile taxing career opportunity
The Grawn Hall classroom is quiet. Five students sit at a table. An IRS agent stands nearby. “Who wants to go firsst?”
Three students eagerly raise their hands. For once, instead of conducting an interrogation, the agent begins answering questions.
About 50 students took part in this daylong IRS workshop, which gave up-close insight into an IRS agent’s life. CMU has the largest number of workshop participants in the nation, said Stephen Moore, IRS Criminal Investigation Division public information officer.
“We always have such an amazing response at CMU. Other groups have about half as many students involved,” he said. “We have 20 agents come to CMU. This is the only college in the country where that happens.”
Additionally, the IRS seeks potential recruits.
“There is a perception of what it is like to work for the IRS, and we want to give a clearer picture,” Moore said. “The workshop also shows accounting students a career option they may not have thought of. Since the IRS works so closely with numbers, we mainly recruit accounting majors, not criminal justice majors.”
It's all about asking smart questions
Students and agents worked in 10 small groups simulating potential IRS activities. Topics ranged from proper interviewing techniques to how to look through trash for case clues.
Acting out one questioning scenario, CMU senior Kyle Sweeney pounded his hand on the table and demanded a false W-2 producer’s name.
“We are the IRS and you better talk,” Sweeney said, pointing to strewn papers.
Special IRS agent Jacob Piazza, ’01, protested Sweeney’s forceful approach.
“This is not TV. There is no slapping the table,” Piazza said. He told students that interviewing is not about force; it’s about asking smart questions and then listening carefully to the answers.
Other scenarios included tax evasion, drug deals, surveillance, embezzlement, and undercover gambling.
Accounting Professor Tom Weirich, who arranges the workshop with the IRS, said the activities are a practical application of course material.
“Not many students get this type of experience,” he said. “This workshop is why the forensic accounting classes are usually so full.”
|
