GOLDEN GATE UNIVERSITY – School of ACCOUNTING 361 - TAXATION OF CORPORATIONS AND OTHER ENTITIES Summer 2011 – May 2 To June 29 9:00-11:45 AM John McWilliams [email protected] 415-442-7809

Required Materials Course Description Studies federal income tax with a focus on more advanced The following materials are required for the course: topics applicable to individuals, corporations and partnerships. West’s Federal Taxation: Comprehensive Volume - 2011 Income taxation of estates and trusts and gift and estate taxes Edition are also covered. This course is only open for students in the Master of Accountancy degree program. by Willis, Hoffman, Maloney & Raabe Prerequisite: ACCTG 360 It is important that the correct edition of the text be Course Objectives acquired. This text is issued in a new edition each year. The objectives of this course are to blend theory with practicality The course details are based on the edition described so that, by the end of the term, you will have developed a above. familiarity with the federal income taxation as it applies to corporations, partnerships, estates and trusts. You will also Book Store understand the basics of the federal wealth transfer tax system To purchase course books and materials from eFollett, and the complications presented by multi-jurisdictional activities. GGU's official online bookstore, go to You also will have experience in answering tax questions by www.ggu.bkstr.com/. consulting primary authority.

Grading Policy Each student's grade will be based upon total points earned on the midterm, final examination and class participation, and weighted as follows: Class Participation 10% Final 60% Research problems 30% Grades will be given as follows: A, A- 90 to 100 points B+, B 75 to 89 points B- 70 to 74 points C+,C,C- 60 to 69 points F below 60 points

Class Participation Class participation grades will be based upon students' demonstration of knowledge and skill through participation in class discussion. Your participation in the class discussion will be assessed by the quality not quantity of your participation in the class discussion.

Research Problems Two sets of research problems will be distributed on the dates indicated below on the Course Schedule. A requested written project will be due on the dates indicated below on the Course Schedule. The research problems will be discussed during the Session when they are due. To facilitate learning, students should feel free to discuss the research problems with their classmates, but each student is required to submit a unique written project. Identical or nearly identical group responses are unacceptable and will be given no credit. The evaluation of the research problems will be based 80% on technical analysis and 20% on the effectiveness of communication. Each research problem is worth 15% of the course grade.

Final Examination The final exam is a comprehensive supervised exam that is open notes.

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Accounting 361 – Summer 2011 – McWilliams - Course Schedule The details of the assignments for each class are available at the GGU Cyber Campus web enhanced version of this class.

Detailed assignments are provided in Course Materials divided into 11 Sections. The appropriate Section for each week is indicated below. The course materials are available at the web Classes Meeting 9:00AM to 11:45 AM enhanced version of this class

Monday May 2 NO CLASS

Class 1 Wednesday May 4 Course Overview, Tax Practice , and Tax Research – Section 1 Taxation of Corporations – Section 2

Class 2 Monday May 9 Corporations – Organization and Capital Structure – Section 3

Class 3 Wednesday May 11 Corporations – Non-liquidating Distributions – Section 4 RECEIVE RESEARCH PROBLEM #1 – May 11

Monday May 16 NO CLASS

Class 4 Wednesday May 18 Corporations – Non-liquidating Distributions (cont’d) – Section 4

Class 5 Monday May 23 Corporations – Liquidations and Reorganizations –Section 5

Class 6 Wednesday May 25 RESEARCH PROBLEM # 1 DUE – May 25

Monday May 30– No Class Memorial Day

Class 7 Wednesday June 1 S Corporations – The Basics – Section 6

Class 8 Monday June 6 S Corporations – Advanced Topics – Section 7

Class 9 Wednesday June 8 Partnerships – The Basics – Section 8 RECEIVE RESEARCH PROBLEM #2 – June 8

Class 10 Monday June 13 Partnerships – Advanced Topics – Section 9

Class 11 Wednesday June 15 Partnerships – Advanced Topics – Section 9

Class 12 Monday June 20 RESEARCH PROBLEM #2 DUE – June 20

Class 13 Wednesday June 22 Multi-Jurisdictional Taxation – Section 10 Income Taxation of Estates and Trusts and Wealth Transfer Taxes – Section 11 Class 14 Monday June 27 COURSE REVIEW AND RECONSIDERATION

Class 15 Wednesday June 29 Comprehensive Final Exam – June 29

Instructor's Biography John McWilliams is a lawyer and CPA with over thirty years of tax advising experience as a consultant to lawyers and accountants on tax matters of their clients. He spent four years with Price Waterhouse in leaving as a tax manager. John is a graduate of Duke School (JD) and Ohio State University ( BS Administration – Accounting). For almost twenty years, he wrote and taught professional continuing education courses for the CPA Education Foundation. These course were largely focused the tax issues facing the owners of closely held conducted as a corporation with or without the S corporation election. He is currently actively involved in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as a member of the Tax Division’s Corporations and Shareholders Technical Resource Panel. From 1976-2010 he was a member of the faculty of the College of Business at San Francisco State University teaching graduate and undergraduate law and tax classes. In 2007 he joined the faculty at Golden Gate University teaching courses in both the School of Taxation and the School of Accounting. Page 2 of 3

Administrative Policies The course will be administered in accordance with Golden Gate University policies and procedures. They can be found in the Gate University Bulletin ("the Bulletin"). Below you will find an explanation of how I will apply these rules to some of the more commonly encountered problems. Exceptions to these rules will be made only in extraordinary situations.

Withdrawals and Incompletes

Students wishing to withdraw from, or take an incomplete in the course must do so in accordance with the University's policies on withdrawals and incompletes. (See the Bulletin.) Academic Integrity at Golden Gate University GGU’s policies on academic integrity are in effect at all GGU teaching locations, including regional classroom sites, corporate sites and distance courses delivered in any medium. This policy applies to all students in the School of Accounting and School of Taxation, among others, and to all students enrolled in taxation or accounting courses, among others, at Golden Gate University.

Academic integrity means doing work in a manner that strives to achieve the learning objectives your courses have set out for you. It means that you follow the rules and procedures proscribed by your instructors so that you acquire the skills and knowledge your courses are designed to give you. It means that you engage in ethical practices in taking tests and doing assignments and that you respect intellectual property rights by fully disclosing sources of information that appear in your papers and presentations. If you have doubt as to whether particular behavior constitutes a breach of academic integrity, it is your responsibility to ask the instructor.

Academic dishonesty is the failure to maintain academic integrity. It includes, but is not limited to, cheating and plagiarism. Cheating is the act of obtaining, or attempting to obtain, or assisting in obtaining credit for academic work through the use of any dishonest, deceptive or fraudulent means.

Plagiarism is the intentional or negligent presentation of another person’s ideas or products as one’s own. This includes the following:

 Copying from another student who has completed courses in prior semesters  Copying all or part of another person's written work without proper citation or attribution  Representing as one's own specific phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or the specific substance of another person's work without giving appropriate credit  Paraphrasing another person's original ideas, theories, explanations, examples, models, principles, research issues and strategies, cases, conclusions, etc. without proper attribution  Representing as one's own another person's computer programs, web content or designs, graphic or artistic works, mathematical or scientific solutions, charts, tables, figures, or illustrations in any medium

All work submitted by students in class (including but not limited to, comments, postings, charts, examples, problem set solutions, and exam answers) must either be the product of the student's own words, understanding or work, or must have credit attributable to the original source. Students may post content from another source verbatim so long as the original source is given credit. It is generally suggested that a higher learning outcome is achieved by a student who has to synthesize information from different sources and express an understanding in his or her own words. The process of synthesizing and paraphrasing also allows the student the step of self assessing their real understanding of what they have just read.

Students must comply with GGU’s Policy on Student Academic Integrity, which is included in the Griffin Student Handbook http://www.ggu.edu/student_services/student_life/griffin_student_handbook/policy_academic_honesty .

Students are subject to the university’s Student Code, which is included in the Griffin Student Handbook and may be read here http://www.ggu.edu/student_services/student_life/griffin_student_handbook/student_code .

Additionally, students are subject to the university’s Judicial Policies, which are included in the Griffin Student Handbook and may be read here http://www.ggu.edu/student_services/student_life/griffin_student_handbook/judicial_policies .

It is suggested that every student regularly read (at the beginning of each semester) the university’s guide for students regarding academic integrity, which may be read here http://www.ggu.edu/student_services/classroom_guidance_student_resources/attachment/Student+Guide+to+Academic+Integrity.p df .

Lastly, questions regarding academic integrity, cheating and plagiarism should be asked immediately and resolved before there is a possible situation where any students’ actions or inactions could be called into question.

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