The Internal Revenue Service, a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, is most commonly known for collecting taxes.
On Monday, 26 UA accounting students learned that the agency does more than tax audits while they participated in the first ever IRS Adrian Project inside of Alston Hall.
“The goal of the program is to give students more awareness of career opportunities and to teach them more about the IRS,” said Mary Stone, the director of the Culverhouse School of Accountancy. “It really gives them a better understanding of the importance of being skeptical and to thoroughly gather evidence. It also gives them the opportunity to apply the techniques and methods that we talk about in class.”
Beginning at 7:30 a.m., students met with IRS agents and began working on five different scenarios that the IRS deals with on a daily basis. Students participated in mock surveillance of suspected criminals, presented and executed search warrants and participated in a grand jury presentation, among other activities.
Nolan Bevill, a senior majoring in accounting, said the program gave her a whole new view on what the IRS does.
“It really has given me hands-on perspective of the daily life of an IRS agent,” Bevill said. “Just getting out into the field and learning what needs to be investigated and what doesn’t has been really neat.”
Bevill said she most enjoyed issuing a search warrant at a makeshift bar.
“We all wore bulletproof vests and carried fake guns when we went into the bar,” she said. “We had to ask for a search warrant from a judge, which was really intimidating, and then we issued it at the bar, where we found that the guy had been keeping a second book and hadn’t reported any of it to the IRS. I really learned a lot from it.”
Veronica Hyman-Pillot, assistant special agent in charge of IRS crime investigation at the Atlanta field office, said she was very excited to be at UA giving students more job opportunities to think about.
“This is a great opportunity to show students the day in the life of an IRS agent,” Hyman-Pillot said. “It’s a great recruiting tool, as well. This is the first time the program has ever been done in an Alabama university, so it’s really exciting. It gives students different avenues to follow and more awareness about the field itself.”
Alex Murray, a senior majoring in accounting, said he most enjoyed working undercover in the makeshift bar.
“We posed as potential buyers and talked to the suspect,” Murray said. “In a lot of our accounting classes, we take a more cut and dry approach to the issue. This program presented much of what we’ve learned in class but in a completely different setting. Seeing the day-to-day jobs firsthand gives us a different perspective than the typical tax audits that we often associate with the IRS.”
Stone said she felt Monday’s program was very successful.
“This is something we’re very interested in developing and giving students views on what’s ahead for them,” she said.
