Take My Liberty ACCT 618 Class

ACCT 618 reads Bittker and Eustice, the treatise practitioners reach for on the taxation of corporations and their shareholders, two chapters a week across fifteen chapters.

The opening chapters set out the corporation as a taxpayer and the choice of entity, and the essay asks you to reflect on your own background in corporate tax.

Formation comes next, centered on Section 351 and the conditions under which property can be transferred to a corporation without tax.

Capital structure and corporate distributions follow, including the line between debt and equity and the earnings and profits that decide whether a distribution is a dividend.

Stock dividends and redemptions come in week four, where the Section 302(b) tests decide whether a redemption is treated as a sale or as a dividend.

Liquidations follow in week five, with gain recognized by the corporation on distributed property and the shareholders treating what they receive as payment for their stock.

Taxable acquisitions and reorganizations under Section 368 fill week six, and corporate divisions and the carryover of tax attributes fill week seven.

A last chapter ends the course, and the closing forum often takes up a live policy question such as the book-income minimum tax or the levy on share repurchases.

The course week runs Monday to Friday in week one and Saturday to Friday after that, closing at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the final Friday.

ACCT 618 has one graded item each week, so it is handled week by week with the lesson problems at the center.

For the reflection, you describe your experience and the essay is built around a single research episode of yours, told plainly and in order.

Without corporate tax experience, the essay can instead describe the tools you would use and how other tax work has readied you.

The first forum's long thread explains when property can move into a corporation tax-free under Section 351, followed by two substantial replies.

Problem answers are laid out practitioner-style, with the statute, the numbers and the reasoning in that order.

Redemption questions are tested against each Section 302(b) safe harbor before any is called a dividend, and reorganization questions first decide whether the deal is taxable or a Section 368 reorganization.

Divisive transactions are checked against every requirement of Section 355 before any spin-off is called tax-free.

Forum 2 in the final week takes a current corporate tax issue and its effect on shareholders.

You submit every answer and post every forum item yourself.

Lesson answers cite the Code section first, then the treatise.

Code first, always.

ACCT 618 goes to a corporate tax practitioner, usually a CPA or tax attorney in a firm's corporate or mergers and acquisitions tax group.

That background fits the lesson problems, which read like the questions a partner hands a senior associate: a set of facts and the tax consequences to work out.

They use Bittker and Eustice in practice, which makes the treatise's footnotes less forbidding and its discussion easier to cite as authority.

Many have worked on redemptions, liquidations and reorganizations for real clients, so the computations follow the order the Code demands.

Before release, a colleague checks every lesson problem against the Code sections it cites.

Your course stays with one practitioner from the essay to Forum 2, so the terminology stays consistent.

The coordinator is the only person who knows your name.

If the treatise's discussion of a topic is hard to follow, a short plain summary can be sent with the next lesson problem.

The treatise is the first difficulty. Bittker and Eustice is written for practitioners, dense and heavily footnoted, and reading two chapters a week takes real time.

The lesson problems are the second, because each set mixes computation with judgment, and a missed Code requirement changes the whole answer.

Earnings and profits are the third: a distribution is a dividend only to the extent of earnings and profits, which are calculated differently from both taxable income and retained earnings.

Redemptions are the fourth, since the Section 302(b) tests and the attribution rules that feed them interact in ways that surprise most students.

Reorganizations are the fifth, with their lettered types under Section 368 and the judicial doctrines of continuity of interest and business purpose.

The forums are long for discussion posts: at least 500 words for the thread and 450 for each reply, with scholarly citations throughout.

The pace never lets up, with a 150-point problem due in five straight weeks.

Carryover of tax attributes in week seven adds the limits on using a target's losses after an ownership change, a topic with its own long statute.

Arranging the course before it opens lets the essay arrive in the first days.

The first forum thread is ready at the start of week two; its replies follow classmates' posts.

From week three on, every problem set is delivered several days ahead of its Friday.

Forum 2 arrives early in the final week.

The five lesson problems make up most of the price, with the forums and essay as smaller lines.

Ordering the whole course at the start costs less per item than ordering week by week.

Students joining after week three are quoted from the next lesson problem.