LAW4243: Tax Policy

10% class participation
40% compulsory assignment (2000 words strictly, no 10% leeway)
50% 2 hour exam (and 30 mins reading time)

Lecturer: Kathryn is awesome. Engaging, extremely knowledgeable (her PhD was in this area), funny and she has really cool hair (used to be a mohawk, currently half-shaved :3)

Assessment: 10% class participation (not sure how this is marked, but she'll memorise everyone's names and faces by week 2 so you better have something interesting to contribute).
40% compulsory assignment covering 2-4 topics in the course and relating them to a current event. This year's assignment question related to the Business Council of Australia's proposal to increase the GST and reduce the company tax rate.
50% exam.

General comments:
We cover topics including:
- economic theories of tax reform
- philosophical perspectives on tax and justice
- criteria used to assess tax policies
- whether to tax the wealthy
- the theories and realities of taxing income and consumption (i.e. GST)
- tax bases like death and bequest taxes
- theories behind the politics of tax reform
- tax expenditures and how they help achieve social justice objectives

Because it's a policy unit, there are very few cases studied (and the ones we do look at, we only look at briefly). The majority of readings are more theoretical in nature. It is a very different subject to the majority of standard law subjects, and the exam reflects this (I've also attached the sample exam to this post).

I couldn't believe I chose this as an elective after how much I despised taxation law, but I'm so happy I did because it's been one of the most interesting law subjects I've studied. It's also by far the toughest subject I've ever studied and the hardest I have ever worked. Some of the readings will leave you feeling like you've been bashing your naked brain against a rusty barbed wire fence for 10 hours. In fact, all of the readings will leave your head aching... but in the same way that your muscles ache after a good work-out. Except philosophy which I will forever maintain that I'm too stupid to understand. Fuck you John Rawls you've taken 10 years off my life span.

If you've ever been interested in economics, tax reform or government policy, you will learn SO much interesting stuff in this unit. But be prepared to work your butt off, especially if you have no background in basic economics or philosophy. (I didn't, and a lot of people didn't, but after flailing around hopelessly for the first couple of weeks I managed okay.) I've attached the reading guide to this post as well to give an idea of the workload! edit: sorry I forgot to remove all my crappy highlighting and notes from the reading guide that I uploaded

Kathryn James

No because first time offered etc. Kathryn was kind enough to write up a sample exam though.

5 out of 5

No, because this is the first time this subject has been offered and so the structure of the subject is still in development, but Kathryn mentioned it might be in future.

None - all set readings are uploaded to Moodle

3 hour lecture per week.
Compulsory readings per week which can take anywhere up to 12 hours depending on length and difficulty.
(NB: Unlike normal law subjects where I think you can get by without reading any cases, I strongly recommend doing the set readings because the topics are quite complex, and there's only so much time in lectures to go through the basics. Kathryn had to cut the last topic out of the exam because there was just too much content and not enough lecture time.)

Semester 2, 2013