Robert Duquette

Professor Duquette has been teaching at Lehigh University since 2009, first as an adjunct, and most recently as a full time Professor of Practice in the Accounting Department. He has also been a full time instructor in the state university system until accepting a full time position with Lehigh. He holds a BA with Highest Distinction and High Honors in Economics (1975) and an MBA of Highest Distinction (1976), both from the University of Maine, Orono, where he earned membership in 3 honor societies, including Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Gamma Sigma, and Phi Kappa Phi. After graduation, Professor Duquette became a CPA, and served in public practice for over 30 years, primarily with Ernst & Young (EY), where he started in their audit practice until becoming senior audit manager in 1984. He then transferred to their tax consulting practice in 1986 after graduating from their Accelerated Tax Training Program in their National Tax Office, where he was that year’s highest ranked graduate in a program designed to be the equivalent of a Masters in tax degree. He was elected to the Partnership in 1990, and began serving as EY’s Managing Tax Partner for Central Pennsylvania until 2002, during which time his practice was consistently ranked first in performance for the entire East region. In 2002, he was named the leader of the Philadelphia Area Transactions Tax Practice, and taught in the National EY University career path training program, until his retirement in 2009. Since then, in addition to teaching, Professor Duquette has consulted part time to local, regional, and national CPA firms, and most recently serves as CPA-Of Counsel to William Koch & Associates.

Over these almost 20 years as a Partner, Professor Duquette specialized in mergers and acquisitions and was responsible for leading and growing a tax practice of over 20 tax professionals, including: the overall quality control of the advice, preparation and review of all significant tax opinions, the coordination of all client tax services, deal structuring, review of all deal related agreements, due diligence of target company tax history and disclosures, and the coordination with financial and legal due diligence teams. Over his career, Professor Duquette advised on over 300 corporate transactions, both domestic and cross border, aggregating over $50 billion in volume for large Fortune 1000 companies, and many middle market companies, and mostly with cross border operations.

Professor Duquette has also served on the Board of Directors of his local chamber of commerce, the National Boards of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Institute of Management Accountants, and has led his Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs state wide and local federal tax committees, including and especially as Co-chair, researcher , publisher, and speaker representative for  their Federal Budget and Tax Reform Subcommittee. In this role, Professor Duquette has distinguished himself in the region as one of the experts on the implications of the federal national debt and the role of tax reform. His research and presentations at professional conferences is consistently ranked by participants as the highest rated and most insightful. His research and presentations uniquely focus on  the substantial misconceptions and misleading information surrounding the topic of the national debt and tax reform; reviews the relevant facts regarding what’s driving the national debt and the complexity of tax law; presents the debt forecast and implications of inaction; and discusses the leading proposed solutions and their implications. His work is frequently published in the Pennsylvania CPA Journal, and in other publications.

Educaion

University of Maine, Orono 1975,BA (Economics)

University of Maine, Orono 1976, MBA (Accounting concentration)

Research Interests

Tax Policy

Federal Debt

Federal Tax Reform