LAW 7771

The Supreme Court and Tax Law

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2019-2020.

In this class we will read and discuss about 30 tax cases decided by the United States Supreme Court over the last 100 years. The goal of the course is to give students a reasonable familiarity with the structure of the U.S. tax law and important tax policy themes, as well as a number of technical tax issues that businesses and individuals are required to confront. This method of proceeding departs significantly from the more usual approach of introductory (and other) tax courses which involves studying the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, court cases and IRS rulings they relate to the taxation of corporations, partnerships, international transactions, and so on. Instead, the course will seek to expose the principal themes of U.S. tax law by examining a number of important controversies that have arisen in the tax law, and their resolution as analyzed in the Supreme Court opinions. The totality of the case readings and discussion hopefully will allow students to obtain a general but broad-based understanding of U.S. tax law – and in the course of doing that we'll hopefully generate some good discussions regarding several unanswered questions in the tax law! As well, the course's emphasis on judicial opinions may provide insight for anyone wishing to gain a better appreciation of how judges evaluate complex problems.

When Offered Fall.

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