M.S. Taxation Professor Wins Outstanding Professor Award

(July 18, 2014) - Congratulations to CSUN accountancy professor Rafi Efrat for recognition by the California Society of Certified Public Accountants with the 2014 Outstanding Educator Award. The award recognizes full-time college accounting educators for leadership, teaching excellence and contributions to accounting education.

Prof. Efrat devotes himself to helping students understand day-to-day practice as well as accounting principles. “I focus on skill-based education,” said Prof. Efrat, a CPA who also practiced tax law. “I am a strong advocate of active learning. It is important to educate the new generation of CPAs not only with a solid foundation in theory behind tax principles, but also expose them to the nuts and bolts of the practice of tax.”

The IRS reports that the most serious problem facing taxpayers is the complexity of the IRS tax code. With a 3.8 million-word federal tax code and six billion hours that taxpayers spend to comply with its requirements, the need for professionals to guide taxpayers has grown.

As a graduate of the CSUN’s David Nazarian College of Business and Economics, Prof. Efrat applies his accounting and law degrees, as well as his expertise as a CPA, to students in the Tseng College’s Master of Science in Taxation program, which he directs. He also teaches Tax Research and Communication in that program, helping students learn how to communicate with their clients and government agencies, and how to deal with ethnical issues.

Members of California Society of Certified Public Accountants vote for the annual award winner. Past recipients include professors from UC Davis, Loyola Marymount University and USC.