BUAD 6159 - Taxation & Business Strategy

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This economics-based course provides a conceptual framework for understanding tax issues in the context of business decisions and business strategy. Students learn about how taxes relate to major decisions throughout the firm’s life cycle: choice of organizational form, employee compensation, investment opportunities, international operations, and business combinations. The key conceptual components include: (1) consideration of the tax implications for all parties to the transaction; (2) consideration of both explicit and implicit taxes, such as lower before-tax rates of return on tax-favored investments; and (3) consideration of both tax and non-tax costs. Although this course focuses on the current U.S. federal income tax system, ultimately the course provides a useful framework for thinking about all tax regimes (i.e., across countries and over time).