This course provides students with a framework for thinking about tax planning. This framework has two principal advantages. First, it is designed to have value long after the next tax act. Second, the framework is portable, in that it can be applied to any set of tax laws – those of the United States or any other country. Once developed, the framework is applied to a variety of business settings. The applications integrate concepts from finance, economics, and accounting to achieve a more complete understanding of the role of taxes in business strategy.
The following groups will profit from this course: financial executives, investment advisors, investment bankers, private equity investors and consultants who want to have a competitive advantage by understanding how taxes impact the structure and value of deals; and managers and analysts who need to understand how firms strategically respond to tax incentives.
Topics include the following: tax planning for investments; tax planning for executive compensation (e.g., executive stock options); tax planning for mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; tax arbitrage strategies; taxation of competing legal entities (e.g., C Corps, S Corps, and LLCs).