BLAW30002: Taxation Law 1

30% group assignment and 70% exam (non-hurdle)

Lecturer: Sunita is an awesome lecturer. Slides are great and have pretty much all you need is on them. She explains every beautifully. her slides are basically summarised legislation. But if you want to get the "bonus marks" there is some legislation nearby the legislation shes said you need which may be relevant and applicable. That will get you an extra mark if you manage to find it.

Tutor: I had Kayla Milone. Shes also awesome. Knows the content incredibly well and provided summaries and short quizzes for knowledge/retention and then went into the questions in good detail.

Tutorial: You HAVE to prepare. If you dont, its a waste of time and you will struggle. This is my first law subject (commerce major and principle of business law doesnt count as a law subject given its all multiple choice). The content is very straight forward and very easy to understand, theres not a lot that tricky (aside from FBT and CGT which can be at times because of the amount of work required for them which needs pretty much a good knowledge of the whole subject to do). Looking back, i very very highly recommend that you write dot points applying the legislation to the case, go to the tutorial, correct yourself and add anything you missed. Then after the tutorial, write out a proper answer. You can bring ANYTHING into the exam.

Assignment: Was very straight forward, nothing surprising. The structure and wording was very similar to the tutorials. Its done in pairs which is a little annoying. You get the exam very early and you will realise that you havnt done the content required. What I did was after the lecture, id make notes and then do the part of the assignment which was relevant. This meant i was working on it like 2 times a week. I kinda regret this. Towards the end i was getting so sick of it that i started to get lazy and dropped marks because i wanted it over and done with. Maybe do it in 2 sittings (its really not that hard) then read over and fix it up as many times as you want. Otherwise, its not a very tricky assignment.

Exam: Will update when i sit it
In the final lecture, Sunita gives you A LOT of info about the exam. She outlines what the question is and how many marks. She is very generous.
e.g. she said:
Q1 a) residency b) CGT c) assessable income
Q2 a) "specific question" (we assume a theory question cause she said it doesnt apply to the facts) b) tax consequences (literally the whole subject)
We know what the exam is, its not hard to figure out the questions because theres only so many things she can ask before it becomes repetitive. She also gave use 2 sample questions with the exact same format as question 1. Like i said before, the challenge of the subject (and any law subject) is to apply facts to legislation. If you have been practicing with tutorials throughout the semester and did well on the assignment, youre all set. She also said that Q2 "was to reward you for the work done on the assignment" so my guess is that most of it will be similar facts to the assignment with a few new facts/trickier facts to differentiate a H1.
Now some bad news. Sunita never gives out a 90%. She said 80% to 90% is already incredible work. If you want a 90%, youre dreaming. To get 90% you need to write everything was looking for PLUS some stuff that she wasn't expecting. This is annoying but it does not change my opinion of this subject. Its a great subject.

!!Making Notes!!: OK. making notes in any law subjects is incredibly important. You have to do it as you go. For every subject i recommend this rather than cramming and freaking out in SWOTVAC. In my notes, i basically copied and pasted the slides and added what ever was said in the lecture that i thought was useful. You can bring in any amount of notes, books, papers. There is absolutely no requirement on what you bring in. My friends are bringing their notes, the textbook and legislation. That ridiculous. You only have 2 hours to write and it can be very time consuming, especially if your looking for cases that apply or legislation. I plan on doing the same thing. BUT my notes INCLUDE the legislation and summarised cases. Theirs dont. Im bringing em in as a backup or to make myself feel better. I wont need to touch them. In your notes, do this as well. This way, you have everything you need together. When youre answering a question, i have everything together - the theory, legislation, cases, tutorial.
The reason why i recommend buying the textbook is if you want to do well. You can easily get away without them - sunit provides all the legislation references (and explains them). She tells you what the cases are and when they are needed (so you can pretty much just drop em after a sentence).
Overall: Its a great subject. Im probably the only one who enjoyed tax. Some subjects can be incredibly draining. During the lecture, Sunita would read out the facts of the case after the theory and would ask us what we think the courts decided. You just vote by raising your hands and then she tells you the outcome. This was genius although she didnt do it often (told her to do more in SES). Its so great becasue you get a list of facts and then can quickly answer it. (plus it was fun for me... thats kinda sad but yea..)

Yes, but only audio. There are very rarely any extra slides, if there are its just photos when the lecturer explains the facts of a case - not needed. I always attended lectures but I dont think it would be too hard to follow if you just listen.

Sunita Jogarajan

Yes, theres a lot held by the library, only a few are relevant but none were provided by the lecturer. However, she does go through EXTENSIVELY whats on the exam. Told us 2 questions with multiple parts and basically tells you the questions you will be asked. However, it doesn't make it much easier because you have to apply the facts to legislation - thats the tricky part off the subject.

4 out of 5

BUY BUY BUY. Theres two you need to get, the textbook and the legislation. If you want to do well, buy it. Its not a difficult subject but if you want to find extra things then you need it (explained below).

Fundamental Tax Legislation (Thomson Reuters, current edition); AND
Sadiq et al, Principles of Taxation Law (Thomson Reuters, current edition)

1 two-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial

2019 Sem 2

75% on assignment (yet to do exam and will update after exam)

30% Pair Assignment, 70% 2-hour Exam

This is a breadth subject usually taken by Accounting students who wish to gain accreditation, but there are also a lot of non-Accounting, non-Commerce students who are taking this subject. I recommend this subject because it's a very useful subject regardless of course. Sunita handles the subject very well, and the tutors are all great, too. You'll really learn a lot (there are quite a number of topics to learn) but you need to work really hard. The readings are usually long especially for Fringe Benefits and Capital Gains, but if you master the textbook, you'll definitely receive a good mark.

That said, if you're going to take this subject, at least try to attend ALL lectures and tutorials because in this subject it's hard to be tangled up in topics that are almost always interconnected. Also, tutorial problems are a very good way to know how to write answers to tax problems for the assignment and the exam.

The mid-semester assignment is done in pairs and is due Week 7. It's basically a 2000-word tax advice to a hypothetical tax problem. It's kind of hard to get full marks because your answer must be very, very comprehensive and detailed to the core; however, because of the word limit, you and your partner need to determine which aspects are important. I think that's where the students are assessed. The average grade here was H2A.

The final exam is 2-hour OPEN BOOK exam, with 30 minutes reading time for the 2 exam questions. The exam questions are quite long and complex, but if you religiously answer all the tutorial/past exam questions over and over again, you will find that the questions are quite manageable. This is a time-attack exam - write as many things as you can - that's why the textbooks will probably be less handy than you think. The thing is to make a really good summary of your notes. With a good set of notes, you'll be able to avoid wasting time by referring to the book every now and then. Also by exam time you would have memorised all statutes and cases by heart.
All in all, I highly recommend this breadth subject basically because the knowledge you'll gain is very useful. It's not an easy H1, though.

Audio File (MP3) only

Sunita Jogarajan

Yes, you can find one on the University Library website. But the tutorials and lecture examples are past exam questions.

4.75 Out of 5

Principles of Taxation Law + Fundamental Tax Legislation 2013 Thomson Reuters - you must have both textbooks all throughout the semester. Tax law, like any other law, changes from time to time. So next year's would be the 2014 version.

1 x 2 hour lecture, 1x 1 hour tutorial

Semester 2 2013