Taxation

Skills – 1 unit - This course will introduce students to the practice of conscious lawyering, including concepts in professional and personal identity, self-awareness, focus, emotional intelligence, cultural and personal values, mindfulness, meditation, and mind-body connection. This course will help train students to be mindful and aware while engaging in the practice of law including litigation, negotiations, transactional deals, client management, and day-to-day work in a law practice.

Lecture - 4 hours. This class is an introduction to the federal income taxation of business entities including corporations and partnerships. This course will examine the federal income tax relationship between corporations and their owners and will cover the transfer of funds into a corporation on formation and the re-transfer of money and property from the corporation to its shareholders.

Lecture - 3 hours. This course is an examination of the federal income tax relationship between corporations and their owners. The class will cover the transfer of funds into a corporation on formation and the re-transfer of money and property from the corporation to its shareholders. The course also considers taxable and non-taxable corporate restructuring in the form of sales, mergers, acquisitions, and divisions of corporations. 

Prerequisite: Law 220 Federal Income Taxation
Final Assessment: Exam

Discussion - 2 hours. Recommended: 221 Trusts, Wills, and Decedents' Estates. Fundamentals of federal transfer taxation, including the estate tax, the gift tax, and the generation-skipping transfer tax.

Please note: students who have already taken Estate and Gift Taxation are not eligible to take this course.

Discussion - 4 hours. There are no prerequisites, although this course is a prerequisite for most other tax courses. This course surveys the federal income tax system, with consideration of the nature of income, when and to whom income is taxable, exclusions from the tax base, deductions and credits, and tax consequences of property ownership and disposition.

All King Hall externships have two components. Students perform substantive legal work at a field placement, and under the supervision of a faculty advisor, complete professional development assignments. Each externship class has a syllabus outlining those requirements. See the Externship website for more information. Student externs work with the Internal Revenue Service or other governmental tax agency, such as the California Franchise Tax Board and the California Office of Tax Appeals.

Discussion plus document drafting skills - 4 hours. This course is a combination skills class and a lecture course.  Students learn the special legal rules and concepts applicable to nonprofit organizations (particularly IRC 501(c)(3) nonprofits) and then, in a workshop class structure, they apply those rules and concepts to complete drafting assignments regarding the formation of nonprofit organizations under state law and the application for tax-exempt status for nonprofit organizations under Federal tax laws.

Discussion - 3 hours. A great number of businesses utilize the partnership structure, including closely-held operating businesses, most investment entities, including private equity, venture capital, real estate and hedge funds, and publicly-traded master limited partnerships.  This course constitutes a study of the federal income tax treatment of partnerships and partners (including entities classified as partnerships).

Discussion - 2 hours.  This streamlined version of Trusts, Wills, and Estates is designed for students who are mainly interested in taking the course to prepare for the bar exam. It covers the basics of intestate succession and the creation and interpretation of wills and trusts under the Uniform Probate Code and the California Probate Code. Although it does not delve deeply into these issues, it sets the stage for students to master them during the bar review period.  

Discussion - 3 hours. This course will introduce students to the international aspects of taxation and how the regime bears on broader social debates. The course will begin by discussing the idea of worldwide taxation, particularly as applied to individuals and as intersecting with immigration law. Then the course will proceed to discussing source of income definitions in American tax law; concepts in inbound taxation i.e. the U.S. taxation of foreign persons; and then concepts in outbound taxation i.e. the U.S. taxation of foreign income.