Tax Policy and Social Justice
Certificate(s): Public Interest and Social Justice Law
Course Description:
This is a policy course and not a tax course. The course will focus on ways in which the Code is accused of being discriminatory on the basis of race, gender, and sexual orientation. No course in tax law is required as a prerequisite. The course will focus on a number of tax provisions in the current Internal Revenue Code and highlight how those provision reflect (or do not reflect) national concerns about social justice. You may learn some tax law simply because of this focus, but the priority in this course is for you to understand how special tax rules reflect overall social policy. Specific areas of focus will include how the tax code treats home ownership, how it treats marriage, and how it discriminates against workers compared with owners of capital. The final grade will be based on a paper in which you will be asked to briefly address a policy question of your choice and to make a proposal for change, as well as on your performance in presenting that paper. The paper should be addressed either to a legislative body or administrative body, depending on what your proposed change is. Students will present their proposals to the class during the last two class sessions. This course satisfies the social justice credit requirement.
Class Notes:
This is a policy course and not a tax course. The course will focus on ways in which the Code is accused of being discriminatory on the basis of race, gender, and sexual orientation. No course in tax law is required as a prerequisite.
The course will focus on a number of tax provisions in the current Internal Revenue Code and highlight how those provision reflect (or do not reflect) national concerns about social justice. You may learn some tax law simply because of this focus, but the priority in this course is for you to understand how special tax rules reflect overall social policy. Specific areas of focus will include how the tax code treats home ownership, how it treats marriage, and how it discriminates against workers compared with owners of capital.
The final grade will be based on a paper in which you will be asked to briefly address a policy question of your choice and to make a proposal for change, as well as on your performance in presenting that paper. The paper should be addressed either to a legislative body or administrative body, depending on what your proposed change is. Students will present their proposals to the class during the last two class sessions.
This class is scheduled as a three hour course (i.e., 150 minutes a week) but since it is only for 2 hours of credit, it will meet for only the first 9 weeks of the semester. That will give you the last 5 weeks of the semester to complete the paper for the course, which will be due on the last class day of the semester.
