The Next Generation of Tax Pros
Students in BU Law’s State and Local Tax Externship tackle complex tax issues with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue
The Next Generation of Tax Pros
Students in BU Law’s State and Local Tax Externship tackle complex tax issues with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.
For Boston University School of Law student Rebecca Turner, working on state and local tax issues is like tackling a challenging puzzle, with potentially big implications for the taxpayers she’s helped.
“That’s what I’ve loved from the start about tax—getting into the meat of it and seeing how it affects people from day to day,” says Turner (LLM’21). “Their tax questions have real-life consequences for them, and that was the most interesting aspect for me.”
Turner took an active role in solving these puzzles as an extern at the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR) in the fall of 2020: conducting research, examining state tax policy, and handling tax-related questions from local businesses for the agency’s Rulings and Regulations Bureau. Now entering its third year, the externship, a partnership between the DOR and BU Law, allows a small group of JD and LLM students to learn more about local tax issues, combining classroom instruction with hands-on work and pairing students with counsel to handle real tax cases and policy.
For Turner, the externship introduced her to various state and local tax issues, allowing her to gain experience in an essential area of taxation. She adds that the opportunity helped improve skills she is looking forward to applying in her career: in tax research, communicating with taxpayers, and collaborating closely with attorneys and superiors. She also got to pick up on the quirks of local tax law, such as what constitutes a meal under Massachusetts state tax.
“Random things like that would pop up during my externship experience that I found interesting and wanted to learn more about,” says Turner. “I really enjoyed that research angle of the job.”
While COVID-19 made the externship far from typical, Turner notes that she learned a lot, made new connections, and gained an appreciation for state and local tax.
“It afforded me a great opportunity to see tax law as more than just this dense material in our textbooks, and really appreciate how it affects people daily—whether they know it or not,” she says.
Launched in 2019, the State and Local Tax Externship is the creation of Kathleen Devlin Joyce, director of the externship program at Boston University School of Law. It’s one opportunity among many in the law school’s broader experiential education curriculum, which offers simulation courses, clinical work, and semester abroad placements.
“It’s a phenomenal opportunity to be within a large state agency, tackling all the different tax issues that come up,” Devlin Joyce says.
The externship places up to six students in different areas of the DOR, working between 16 to 24 hours per week. Students also receive lessons on state and local tax issues from the deputy general counsel of the DOR.
“It was my favorite class,” says Sergio Guillen (JD, LLM’21), who took part in the externship in fall 2020. “Boston University wants you to learn the substantive tax material in the class that you can apply to your work the next day.”
Guillen chose the externship because it allowed him to see how businesses were affected by state and local tax issues. “It offered the most actual hands-on experience on subjects I was interested in,” he says.
He spent the semester conducting research, writing reports, and working closely with DOR counsel. He assisted on cases including state taxes on products stored in Massachusetts-based Amazon warehouses, credit card scanner fraud, and more.
Although working remotely due to the pandemic, Guillen was impressed by the DOR’s efforts to keep externs engaged, including daily check-ins, weekly all-staff meetings, and myriad opportunities to communicate with the agency’s professionals. His boss provided helpful feedback and encouraged him to engage with others at the agency.
For Gaetano Mortillaro (JD, LLM’21), the externship was an invaluable opportunity to better grasp how tax controversy matters work. He notes that while his courses covered the basics of practicing law, the externship encouraged him to participate in the law, allowing him to learn by doing with strong guidance.
“There was a significant amount of mentorship,” he adds. “The attorney I worked with genuinely cared about what I was learning.”
Attending the externship in fall 2019, Mortillaro recalls watching cases he worked on as they were argued in court, which demonstrated first-hand how litigation works, how attorneys prepare for cases, and how to fine-tune arguments.
“Having the experience of not only watching, but understanding what is going on in the litigation, it’s really enlightening,” he says.
In addition, the externship created a space for Mortillaro to get to know other students in the program, fostering lasting relationships with them and with the attorney mentor and the class instructor.
“You make connections with every single person you work with,” he says. “It gave me the confidence to move forward in my career.”
Those connections can lead to tangible outcomes. Through the externship, Guillen learned of a position practicing state and local tax law at PricewaterhouseCoopers and was inspired to apply. He’ll begin working for the international firm after graduation.
“The work I did at the DOR was really notable to the recruiters at PwC,” he says. “From this semester’s experience I was able to learn enough to get my foot in the door.”
