Courses

This course offers an introduction to the basic legal principles and underlying policies of the federal personal income tax. It aims to provide grounding in such fundamental areas as the concept of income, income exclusions and exemptions, deductions for business expenses, “personal” deductions, basic tax accounting, the assignment of income, and capital gains and losses. We will consider both how to read a complex statute, and how decades of judge-made interpretative rules have shaped (or misshaped) contemporary doctrine and practice. In addition, we will touch on the income tax’s broader public and economic significance, along with the policy issues raised by its incentive and distributional effects. Due to the importance of the federal income tax, and of lawyers’ role in the tax system, it is recommended that every student take the basic course at some time during his or her law school career. The course is a prerequisite to all further tax courses, including Corporate Tax, Partnership Taxation, and International Taxation.