Operationalising an ethics of care in a tax clinic: student reflections on client vulnerability

Purpose This study aims to examine how participation in a university-led tax clinic contributes to the development of accounting students’ ethical understanding. While tax clinics are known to enhance technical competence and social awareness, less is known about how such experiences shape students’ moral reasoning, professional identity and sense of responsibility when working with vulnerable clients. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on reflective journals completed by accounting students participating in a pilot National Tax Clinic programme in Australia in 2025. Students engaged directly with vulnerable clients experiencing financial, digital, social and personal barriers to tax compliance. A total of 81 reflections were thematically analysed using an ethics of care framework focusing on relationality, contextuality and empathy and responsiveness. Findings Students’ ethical understanding developed primarily through relational engagement with clients rather than through technical rules or professional codes. Students interpreted client non-compliance as shaped by systemic and contextual factors, including employment precarity, migration, limited education and digital exclusion. Ethical reasoning was characterised by attentiveness to lived circumstances, emotional responsiveness to hardship and adaptive support strategies. Originality/value This study extends accounting education research by theorising tax clinic learning as a site of moral and professional development. It contributes student-voice evidence of how ethical sensibilities and professional identities are formed through relational practice, rather than solely through formal ethics instruction or competency-based training.