15.518  Taxes and Business Strategy

Hi guys,

Just a reminder that we are not in our normal classroom today. Instead we are in E62-223.

Good luck and again, thanks for a great semester! Hope the class was useful - keep in touch!

Prof. Hanlon

Hi 15.518 Students:

I hope you had a good weekend and everyone at least called their mom!

Tomorrow we will continue on and finish discussing estate and gift taxation. You have the notes already from last Thursday.

If there is excess time...we will talk about inversions. I received one vote for political platforms and one vote for inversions. But since there are about 25 people running in the GOP there is no way we will have time to talk political platforms (and most of them have not released anything so detailed anyway).  In all likelihood we will not have excess time sufficient to talk about either topic though as we still have quite a bit left in estate and gift.

I did post two more articles (from students) about international taxation. They are interesting if you get time to take a look.

On Thursday you will have your second quiz. You may again use a cheat sheet just as on quiz 1. The quiz is in ROOM E62-223 NOT in our normal room.  The dean is having an executive meeting in the other room because it is bigger.

If you have questions, let Ben or me know. See you tomorrow morning!

Thanks,

Prof. Hanlon 

Hi 15.518 students -

I have posted the notes for the estate and gift topic on Stellar.  I decided that it will be best to start these right away tomorrow and if we need to, we will finish this topic next Tuesday to make sure we get it all in (because there will be some quiz questions on the estate and gift tax potentially).  If we have extra time on Tuesday of next week we can discuss either inversions (which will not be on the quiz) or candidates' platforms (also not on the quiz)...if you have a preference for either of those topics let me know!.  

I did however post several articles about corporate inversions. So if you have an interest in this type of transaction read those and if we do not get to the topic next week, feel free to email me if you want to discuss further.

I also posted some more articles that some of you have sent to me. Thanks for those! It is great so many of you are reading tax related stories. Also, for those of you that went to Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting, I heard taxes came up in several contexts so hope you found that interesting! 

See you in the morning!

Prof. Hanlon 

Hi 15.518-

I posted the slides from our speaker for tomorrow on Stellar if you want to have them with you in class tomorrow to follow along.

I also posted two articles (thanks to Zach and Kalpana!) about the NFL giving up its tax exempt status. Interesting...seemingly mostly for PR purposes (and so they do not have to disclose the Commissioner's compensation). 

Finally, just to clarify because I have received a few questions... we are still having the last quiz on May 14th. It will be in a different classroom but we are still having the quiz during the regular class time on the 14th. It will not be cumulative, although it may have some questions from the accounting for income tax part of the course in addition to all the material we have covered since Spring Break.

Thanks and see you tomorrow morning!

Prof. Hanlon