Reviews the book "Accounting Fundamentals: A Self-Instructional Approach," by Stephen A. Moscove.

Reviews the book "Teaching Undergraduate Tax Accounting in the 1970s," by Clark E. Chastain.

The typical Federal tax course can be made more meaningful with an introduction which emphasizes the social, economic and political aspects of any taxation system. Once the student appreciates these influences on a tax structure, he will then be in a better position to understand and evaluate the current tax system as he learns some of its details. A tax system game, presented here in the article, is designed to give the student insight into the philosophies, practicabilities, conflicts, and compromises of taxation. Its two major objectives are, to develop a systematic way of thinking about taxation and to see why society develops the tax system as it does. A sixty-member class was subdivided into groups of six to eight students to encourage discussion and interaction. Each student received a copy of the game which, as may be noted, has very little formal structure and acts instead merely to set the stage. The study groups worked for three periods and then submitted reports outlining the tax systems that they had developed along with the reasons for their choices. During the discussion of the proposals, the students discovered that the theoretical tax systems which they had designed tended to protect and benefit their own present position.