Undergraduate tax education in the new millennium: Technical vs. conceptual

It has been argued that tax education in the 21^st century faces significant challenges on how to educate accounting graduates [future accountants] in a complex and rapidly changing environment. Prior studies found that the advancement of Information and Communications Technologies [ICT] has an impact on accounting and tax practice. This study solicited tax practitioners´ views on the level of conceptual knowledge and technical ability accounting graduates need to acquire in order to perform effectively in tax practice. Questionnaires was developed and electronically administered to collect data. The results revealed that most of the respondents put more emphasis on the need to have conceptual knowledge than technical ability. The respondents indicated that accounting graduates should have a strong understanding of basic principles and concepts of Malaysian taxation in order to develop their technical ability. Collectively, the findings suggested that tax educators are urged to revamp tax curriculum to expose graduates to various tax software, and to put more emphasis and imparting conceptual knowledge than technical/computational skills.