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Peer Review

Basics of Federal Income Taxation

Reviewed:

Apr 10, 2025 by Business
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Ratings

Overall Rating: 4.2 stars
Content Quality: 4.5 stars
Effectiveness: 4.5 stars
Ease of Use: 5.0 stars
Overview:

  This is a video-based course about income taxation basics. It is suitable for many learning levels because it requires no prerequisite knowledge of taxation. It is a series of video modules that explain aspects of income taxation and contains a case study.

Type of Material:

Online Course

Recommended Uses:

  • The best use of this material is self-paced instruction. The speed of the video prevents it from being used in the space of time allowed for a classroom setting.
  • It can also be used as a homework assignment or refresher of principles of federal tax regulations.
Technical Requirements:

 The material was accessed through FireFox and Chrome.  It is also compatible with Blackberry, iOS (Apple), Windows Mobile, Android.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

  • Understand how federal income is assessed
  • Explain what the different types of income under the tax code are
  • Describe personal deductions and their impact on tax
  • Differentiate the various types of business deductions for income tax purposes
  • Learn about tax credits and the alternative minimum tax
  • Explore a case study about income tax
Target Student Population:

  • Undergraduate accounting classes
  • Graduate accounting classes
  • Undergraduate tax accounting classes
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

None

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:

  • The content of this course is clear and concise.
  • It provides a demonstration of tax law grounded in the accounting discipline.
  • It is relevant and supported by appropriate research. It is self-contained and accurate.
  • The material is flexible and contains an adequate amount of information.
  • Concepts are categorized, and subcategories are defined.
  • The video format appears to be a PowerPoint format of slides.   
  • The slides themselves are simple and well balanced with text and graphics. 
  • Slides are not overly formatted.

 

Concerns:

  • The clipart images used are somewhat juvenile, given the topics covered, however, the author might intend that simplified graphics will make the material less intimidating.
  • The pace of the video is fairly fast.  Complex topics and new terms are covered with little opportunity to absorb the information. Listeners/Viewers will have to pause and rewind often to repeat the information.
  • Because federal income tax rules change frequently, it would be important to know if the information in the videos is up to date. The course videos themselves do not list the date created, but the website indicates a copyright of 2021. Some of the content of the videos refer to the year of the rule. For example, 2019 is mentioned as the year in which personal income deductions are calculated.
  • It's possible that there may be rule changes not covered in the topics presented. If this is the case, the content is not relevant or useful.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:

  • Learning objectives and prerequisite knowledge are identified.
  • The course reinforces concepts progressively and builds connections among concepts.
  • It would be easy to integrate into curriculum assignments and is very efficient.
  • It could be used to measure student learning outcomes.
  • The material is quite comprehensive.  The amount of information included would aid a knowledgeable person to, in fact, prepare their own individual or business tax return.
Concerns:

  • It is unlikely that anyone will be able to follow this fast-paced, highly technical course without an upper-level college course in tax accounting.  This is not a course for a casual user.
  • The material is frequently overly complicated, with examples of atypical tax situations.
  • Because of the complex nature of the material, it is not clear how this information conveyed is to be used.  If it is informative only, it would be difficult to absorb all of the complex, technical information.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:

  • This video course is easy to use and contains clear instructions.
  • It is engaging and visually appealing.
  • The usability of this material is very high
  • The videos are well-marked and easy to find and play.  One only has to press play to view the video.
  • The videos are embedded on a page that has links at the bottom to navigate to other videos.

The site is in working order and there were no problems using it.

Each video is accompanied by a transcript of the video which would make it accessible ot persons with vision or hearing disabilities.

Concerns:

  • The video course lacks interactivity
  • It does not meet accessibility requirements due to the lack of closed captions.
Other Issues and Comments:

The video states that no prior knowledge of accounting or tax law is required, however, the language used on the course is at times technical and would not easily be understood by a person without having taken some basic college accounting or tax courses. For example, the video uses the terms, statutes, code and revenue rulings.  These are not terms familiar to casual users.

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