Categories: Tax Law Business, Corporate, Commercial Law

Instructor(s)

Schnur, Robert

Course Data

Room 5246
MTWR 1:10pm-2:05pm

Pass/Fail: Yes

Course Description

Federal Income Taxation (Tax I)

This course serves as an introduction to the United States system of federal personal income taxation, a system based on regulatory as well as judicial law. The course focuses on building the vocabulary of tax law and exploring the social, political, and economic factors that influence, and are influenced by, the tax law. Federal Income Taxation is taught only in the fall and is the foundation for all other tax courses. Therefore, students who think they might be interested in taking additional tax courses should plan to take Federal Income Tax in the fall of their second year.

By the end of this course, a student should be able to:

1. Recognize and identify the basic federal income tax issues that are presented in the most common tasks attorneys are called upon to perform for their clients, including (where appropriate) the effect that accomplishing the task would have on the client’s gross income, deductions, credits and applicable tax rate.
2. Communicate to their clients (whether orally or in writing) the nature of these basic tax issues in an accurate and understandable manner.
3. If so requested by a client, locate, analyze and understand the sources of the tax law bearing on the task at hand (including the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury Regulations, published and unpublished guidance from the Internal Revenue Service and tax cases).
4. Determine from these sources one or more proposed methods of accomplishing the desired task that would enable the client to reach its goal while minimizing the client’s federal income tax liability in a legal and ethical manner.
5. Communicate these proposals to clients and/or their other advisors in an accurate and understandable form.

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