Mrs Lynda Burkinshaw
Lecturer in Accounting
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I trained as a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser with KPMG after graduating with a degree in Accounting and Finance from Leeds Metropolitan University. I specialised in taxation and later moved to a smaller firm in Barnsley. For a time, I worked both in practice and at the University of Sheffield running tutorials in financial accounting and taxation. In 2007 I left practice in order to teach full time at Sheffield Hallam University, returning to the University of Sheffield in May 2012 as a lecturer.
Research Interests
I will be registering for a tax related PhD shortly, as this is the area in which I have a research interest. My interest in this area has been driven by my years working as a tax practitioner and I am particularly interested in the reasons for the complexity of the tax law and the link between taxation and financial accounting.
Teaching
I am module leader for the Taxation module. This is a subject that many students may think dull, or boring, or even straightforward and “black or white” – it is none of these things – a good dose of enthusiasm (from me!) and the introduction of some of the more “odd” tax cases soon diminish these thoughts. Whilst some “number crunching” is necessary, some of the more interesting aspects of tax teaching is to allow students to research around what they think the meaning of various common phrases mean – from the meaning of capital/revenue/plant/trade and so on – the students soon realise that all is definitely not “clear” and this is what makes for interesting discussions and debates. Taxation is a career in its own right and students may not appreciate this initially – in the past a number of students that I have taught have chosen tax as a career choice – which makes the teaching of the subject that little more rewarding.