This course requires that you can and want to analyze financial statements. If your accounting and analysis skills are rusty, refresh them before taking this course.

Please contact NYU IT (askit@nyu.edu, 212-998-3333) or NYU Stern IT (helpdesk@stern.nyu.edu, 212-998-0180) for all Zoom/email/NYU Brightspace/Admin/CapitalIQ issues. Please do not copy/contact me. Brightspace and NYU groups send all emails to the @nyu.edu (not @stern.nyu.edu) address, while Stern class mail lists send emails to @stern.nyu.edu. You must check BOTH emails and use the correct browser profile. Please contact IT to figure this out. Do not write to Almaris or me if you do not get Almaris emails because this issue is between NYU and you.

Overview

There are two versions of this course in Albert as shown below:

This course explains how taxes affect mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, valuation, capital structure, employee compensation, foreign operations, alternative investment vehicles, and deferred taxes, including net operating losses. The course also covers the key provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The course is highly relevant to those pursuing careers in investment banking, corporate finance, research, private and public equity, and corporate tax law.

Takeaways

Learn how taxes affect the following decisions:

Help and Office

Disclaimers

Materials

Attendance and penalty for missing classes

Requiring attendance is necessary for several reasons. First, you incorrectly assume you can catch up on a missed class by watching a recording (if available). Videos do not engage your brain as much as a live class. Second, less than 20% of you watch the recording (if available). You are then lost in class, which provides wrong signals to me as an instructor. Third, your absence hurts class discussions. Fourth, you miss out on feedback if you do not work through the questions I pose in class. Fifth, I lose the feedback since there are fewer questions.

The policy below will be in effect only after the add/drop period.

Without mandatory attendance, attendance is often below 50%. Therefore, though I dislike doing this, I penalize absences. If you anticipate being absent for good reasons, please email me well in advance. Please enter "Excused" on the attendance sheet described below to avoid the penalty if I approve. If you miss a class due to emergencies and cannot tell me in advance, do not panic. Take care of the emergency first, and then email me. I will permit you to change the "Absent" to "Excused." But, if you miss a class without a valid reason, there is a penalty, as stated below.

For sections meeting in 150-190 minute sessions, you will lose one grade (A to A-, A- to B+, B+ to B, B to B-, and so on) for EVERY missed session unless you were explicitly excused via email. Thus, if you miss two class sessions, you will lose two grades, and so on.

For sections meeting in 75-80 minute sessions, you will lose one grade (A to A-, A- to B+, B+ to B, B to B-, and so on) for EVERY TWO missed sessions unless you were explicitly excused via email. Thus, if you miss four class sessions, you will lose two grades, and so on.

Please sit in the same seat in every class and display your name tags. For Zoom classes, you must keep your video on AT ALL TIMES. You must also have a good working headset or mic, as it is extremely rude to be inaudible and force me to ask you to repeat yourself. After entering the class, please mark yourself present in the first 20 minutes on the OneDrive sheet (link posted on Brightspace). You will be marked absent if you are more than 20 minutes late unless it is because of factors beyond your control (traffic, subway, interviews running late). You will also be marked absent if you leave the class early unless you have my permission or get it afterward. You will get an F in the course if you are caught cheating on the attendance sheet.

Exams and Grading

Schedule

Class Topic
1
  • Fundamentals of corporate taxation and core tax concepts
2
  • Tax disclosures in financial statements: Current versus deferred taxes
3
  • Choice of form and entity classification
  • Capital structure decisions
  • Formation of a corporation and Section 351
4
  • Corporate income: Classification
  • Concept of Earnings and Profits
  • Consolidated versus separate tax returns
  • Inside versus outside basis
  • Taxation of shareholders
5
  • Non-liquidating distributions
  • Redemption distributions
  • Stock dividends
6
  • Liquidations
  • Sale of subsidiaries
7
  • Fundamentals of taxation of mergers and acquisitions
  • Asset purchase versus stock purchase
8
  • Section 338(g) election
  • Section 338(h)(10) election
  • Section 336 election
9
  • Non-taxable transactions
  • Section 368
  • Section 351
10
  • Tax Planning for Compensation
  • Stock compensation, Pensions, Health care

11
  • International taxation
  • GILTI, FDII, Participation Exemption, BEAT
  • Tax structuring
12
  • FINAL EXAM