This course is important for the aspiring tax professional who desires to better understand and communicate with business decision makers concerning the consequential effects of transactions and how they will be reflected in the financial statement disclosures or tax related accounts found in the income or balance sheet. This course is important for the person who wants to best position themselves for job opportunities with some of the single largest U.S. and global employers of tax professionals (e.g., the Big-4 accounting firms) who place a premium on LL.M. (Tax) applicants with a basic understanding of the financial statement impact of various taxable events, which are important to many of their clients and the services they provide.

This one-credit pass/fail course is comprised of four conceptual modules: the first three modules focus on income based taxes; and, the fourth, non-income based taxes. The income tax modules are designed to first explain and illustrate the financial statement accounting rules applicable to a wide range of frequently encountered taxable events; and, secondly, illustrate how the financial accounting consequences arising from those events can drive the actions of business decision makers in a direction that may appear counterintuitive from a tax perspective only. Contemporary topics facing today’s decision makers will be selected for this course, and will be explained and illustrated through assigned readings, classroom examples, and case studies.

The first of the income tax modules, Basic Accounting Concepts, will offer the uninitiated a high level overview of the conceptual cornerstones that drive most of the significant accounting questions related to taxation. Further, this first module will define and illustrate the concept of “deferred taxation”, which is the financial statement mechanism used to reconcile the differing rules governing the recognition of transactions for financial statement and tax statement purposes; and, most frequently, where the accounting differences between US GAAP and IRFS arise. Other topics explained and illustrated herein will include: permanent differences; temporary differences involving deferred tax assets, deferred tax liabilities and the impact of changing tax rates; uncertain tax positions; undistributed profits of foreign subsidiaries; net operating losses; and, related financial statement disclosures.

The second income tax module, More Advanced Accounting Concepts, will drill down on other select topics where disparate financial statement standards exist between US GAAP and IFRS. Among the topics included in this module are: share-based payments; foreign non-monetary assets and liabilities; intercompany transfers of assets remaining within the group; tax basis and intention of management for settling assets/liabilities; the “initial recognition exemption”; and, the measurement of deferred taxes when different tax rates apply to distributed and undistributed profits.