Spring 2025

6373 Tax Policy - SHEFFRIN- 25262

Professor(s): Steven Sheffrin (ADJUNCT)

Credits: 3

Course Areas: Taxation

Time: 2:30p-4:00p MW Location: 260

Course Outline: Designed (i) to introduce students to recurring themes of tax policy; and (ii) to develop students’ ability to analyze and discuss existing and proposed laws in terms of the tax policies that such laws do and do not serve.

Course Syllabus: Syllabus

Course Notes: (Face-to-Face) The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. For this instruction mode, instructors and students are expected to normally be physically present in the classroom. If the course has a final examination, it will be in a classroom requiring your physical presence. Other assessment, such as a mid-term exam, may also be in a classroom. Whether this instructor will offer “remote presence” (starting a zoom meeting from the podium computer to enable student remote access on an occasional basis) for part or all of the semester is not known, but students should not rely on an expectation that remote presence will be available.

Prerequisites: Yes Federal Income Taxation

First Day Assignments:

Final Exam Schedule:

This course will have:
Exam: NO
Paper:

Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: No

Experiential Course Type: simulation

Bar Course: No

DistanceEd ABA: No

Pass-Fail Student Election: Conditional Availability (not for required credits)

Course Materials

Book(s) Required

Course Materials: ISBNs required: 9780143111146, 9781839984945; 9780691165455; 9780691225548; 9781324002727

T.R. Reid, A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System, Penguin Books, 2017
Steven M. Sheffrin, Behind Tax Policy Controversies: Social, Legal, and Economic Foundations, Anthem Press, 2023
Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage, Taxing the Rich: A History of Fiscal Fairness in the United States and Europe, Princeton U. Press, 2016
Michael Graetz, The Power to Destroy, Princeton University Press
Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay, 2019, W.W. Norton