Abstract:

Master's studies at accounting prepare students for independent bookkeeping (acting as the chief accountant) which requires high qualifications. The chief accountant is in charge of all accounting and tax matters in the company, and besides typical accounting knowledge must demonstrate deep knowledge of tax law and the ability to combine accounting and tax issues.

In order to achieve this goal, the didactic Master's degree program at University of Gdansk provides for the study of specialized subjects in the fields of accounting and tax law. One of the most important subject is Tax accounting which requires from the students a lot of prior knowledge in the field of accounting and tax law.

Assuming that the main purpose of Tax accounting is to show students the differences in the approach of economic operations for accounting and tax purposes, the teaching process should be based on properly selected examples, so that it is understandable for students. From a didactic point of view, the properly selected example is one that:
1. contains a lot of differences between its approach for accounting and tax purposes, and
2. its records in accounting books are very diverse (different accounting and other tax treatment).

One of the example that meets the above criteria is depreciation of fixed assets. Fixed assets are one of the most important assets of enterprises i.e. the issue is very well understandable for students and the principles of their depreciation for accounting and tax purposes are highly diversified.

As a result, on the basis of depreciation of fixed assets it is possible to present to students the most important relationships between economic operations, which are differently recognized for the purpose of financial accounting and tax accounting.

The paper presents the advantages and disadvantages of choosing the issue of depreciation of fixed assets for the purposes of teaching students the subject of Tax accounting. Among the many advantages, the most important is that this example very clearly shows different approaches to accounting and tax law to the same issue, i.e. the amount of costs for depreciation of fixed assets set for accounting purposes and tax law. Finally, the indication of such differences is the essence of the subject Tax accounting.

The considerations based on years of practice in teaching Tax accounting subject were also illustrated by the results of a questionnaire survey carried out by group of students studying the subject of Tax accounting in the academic year 2017/2018.

Keywords:

Financial accounting, tax accounting, tax law, financial and tax reports.