Uni students answer Breaking Bad-inspired question

The inclusion of the question has been applauded by Auckland University students.

University tax exam draws on popular TV culture to prepare accountants for reality.

It's Breaking Bad in reverse - a sick son needing an expensive operation in America, a chemistry teacher called Walter turning to methamphetamine production to make money and an unexpected twist putting accountancy students centre stage.

A commercial tax law paper at Auckland University has drawn inspiration from a popular television series posing an entertaining question about tax and illegal profit-making.

Students are presented with a case study of a modestly-paid chemistry teacher called Walter who quits teaching and turns his skills to set up a P lab in rural Kaipara. Using contacts at a pharmaceutical company and through school, he establishes a successful operation that sees him sell $1 million worth of P in two years.

The profits go towards his son's medical treatment.

In the university paper, students are asked to advise him on the tax consequences of his drug earnings after he becomes concerned he may be subject to an IRD audit.

Senior tax law lecturer Mark Keating said the paper was about putting real situations in front of students to prepare them for when they graduate and join the workforce.

"One of the things we really strive to do is make it entirely practical using real world examples," he said.

"Obviously we're not trying to encourage this sort of illegal activity but when training accountants, they often have clients who do."

He said the university's tax exams often contained questions about winning Lotto and getting inheritances.

"It's a principle we need to get across to our students who are one day going to be accountants, that just because your clients are engaging in illegal activity, that it is still subject to tax."

The answer was Walter was subject to pay tax on his illegal profits from his P business.

Case law states that the Government is entitled to tax on illegal income.

The inclusion of the question has been applauded by Auckland University students.

Wrote Amirah Ali on Facebook: "Best exam question I've ever done tbh [to be honest]."

Another student wrote: "If I had content like this when I was doing Comlaw, I would've done well."

Breaking Bad was a top-rating American crime drama series which aired between 2008-13.

It told the story of Walter White, a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. With a former student, he turns to a life of crime, producing and selling top-class crystal meth to secure his family's financial future before he dies.

It's not the first time New Zealand universities have drawn on popular culture.

Earlier this year, an Auckland University philosophy lecturer used the two-toned blue and black "dress that broke the internet" in a critical thinking paper to investigate how background factors skewed the way people evaluated evidence.

And, at Victoria University, a law paper on legal reasoning and writing turned to reality TV, creating a fictitious scenario between contestants vying for the heart of Arthur Green on The Bachelor NZ.