Students will be required to prepare legal memoranda. Formation, operation, and liquidation of S-corporations discussed briefly. Problems encountered in the formation, operation, and liquidation of a partnership including the acquisition of partnership interests, compensation of the service partner, the treatment of partnership distributions, and problems associated with the disposition of partnership interests or property by sale. Also includes analysis of the problems encountered in parallel civil and criminal proceedings, problems involving government investigatory powers and taxpayer rights and privileges. Alternatives, including current legislative proposals, are considered.
Students prepare a paper on a tax policy issue approved by the professor.
Basic principles of federal estate and gift taxation, including computation of the taxable estate, inter vivos transfers, transfers in contemplation of death, transfers with retained interests or powers, joint interests, life insurance proceeds, property subject to powers of appointment, the marital deduction and the unified credit. Course is geared toward understanding all of the pension and profit-sharing rules that must be met for plan qualification, with emphasis on qualified plan planning for both incorporated and unincorporated forms of business. Course also focuses on the gathering and analyzing facts in the planning and drafting of trusts, wills, and related documents. An integrated study of the impact of tax, securities, corporate law, and partnership law on business transactions. Topics include selection of the form of business enterprise, acquisitions and dispositions of business interests, and professional responsibility issues.