Consider the following scenario. You are a tax professional meeting with a new client to help them make strategic tax planning decisions. You know that clients can choose a variety of tax positions that vary in aggressiveness. A very conservative tax position will result in paying higher taxes, but a reduced likelihood of the IRS auditing and fining the client. In contrast, taking an aggressive tax position will result in lower taxes, but an increased likelihood of the IRS auditing and fining the client. As this is a new client, you want to assess the client’s appetite for taking aggressive versus more conservative tax positions. An intern prepared a list of questions for you to ask the client. Review the list of questions below.

REQUIRED

For each question, decide whether it is a SMART question or not. If not a SMART question, then rewrite the question and explain why you changed the question. Consider each question independent of the others, meaning redundancy between questions is ok, as you would not likely ask all of these questions. This exercise helps you practice developing SMART questions.
1. You want to take an aggressive tax position, right?

2. Why do you pay taxes?

3. What do you think Congress should do to reform personal income taxes in this country?

4. How much money do you want to save on taxes?