raabe-william

William A. Raabe Ph.D., CPA '75

2005 Distinguished Alumnus Award for Professional Achievement

William A. Raabe '75 is among the country’s leading experts on tax law.  As one of the first graduates of Carroll’s accounting program, Bill graduated Carroll in 1975 and went on to become a CPA and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 1979.  His dissertation advocated ways to reduce the complexity of the income tax return filing process for individuals.  He also was one of the initial and instrumental members of Carroll’s Business Advisory Council.
 
He has enjoyed a long career as a tax professor, researcher, and textbook author. Dr. Raabe established a nationally recognized Masters of Taxation program at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. He was named Educator of the Year by the Wisconsin Society of CPAs and a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor in 1989, an honor bestowed on only 20 UW system faculty.
 
In 2001, he moved with his family to Ohio and served as founding dean of the school of management at Capital University. Dr. Raabe then joined the business college faculty of The Ohio State University. He founded the Fisher / OSU Tax Clinic, in which Fisher students volunteer annually to provide free tax preparation services for low-income Columbus taxpayers. 
 
Dr. Raabe recalled the important contributions of Carroll’s faculty in his development. “Robert Kearns and Michael Hucke deserve so much credit for turning us into accountants, as they taught almost all of the major courses. I had many courses in computing, really at the dawn of the data revolution. Working in the lab with Harold Glander, and taking his programming courses, gave me a big jump into that field and taught me how to craft and execute projects that turned on logical thinking. I also worked as an assistant to Lloyd Wadleigh, who let me do some teaching and grading, and connected me with the doctoral program at Illinois. And Gary Stevens honed my writing skills and kept me from becoming too narrow.” 
 
Dr. Raabe’s writings have included a financial column in the Milwaukee Journal and textbooks for higher education. His scholarly interests include the sales and income taxation of the Internet, taxation of international trade, and economic impact studies and analyses of the finances of professional and university sports operations.
 
Recently, Raabe has returned to Wisconsin, as he was named the Distinguished Professor of Accounting in the business college at UW-Whitewater.

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