This curricular pathway provides a progression of courses relevant to tax law that are offered at South Texas College of Law Houston.
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Tax Law Pathway
| Core courses | |
| Recommended courses | |
| Bar | Relevant bar examination topic |
Stage 1
Federal Income Taxation
View detailsCrossover bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year.
This is an introductory course in the fundamentals of federal income taxation designed to prepare students, as lawyers, to recognize and appreciate the impact of income tax consequences on transactions and events they encounter in the general practice of law, including family law, dispute settlement, real estate, investments of various types and small business counseling. Areas of coverage include the definition and characterization of income, exclusions from income, deductions, and the determination of gain or loss from property transactions. With an emphasis placed on the Internal Revenue Code and Treasury regulations, students are introduced to essential legal skills of learning to read and understand the language of statutes and regulations as well as judicial interpretations and administrative pronouncements.
Agency & Partnership
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered twice each academic year.
A study of the legal doctrines governing the formation, operation, and termination of agency relationships, partnerships, limited liability partnerships, limited partnerships, and limited liability companies, including the rights, duties, and obligations of owners and managers.
Corporations
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year.
A study of the legal doctrines governing the formation, operation, and termination of corporations, including the rights, duties, and obligations of shareholders, directors, and officers.
Wills, Trusts & Estates
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year.
A study of the execution and revocation of wills, intestate succession, will contests and will substitutes; creation and administration of private express, charitable, resulting, implied and constructive trusts; duties, powers and responsibilities of trustees; and the basics of estate administration.
Stage 2
Consider earlier courses plus one or more from below
Corporate Taxation
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
Examination of the federal income taxation of business organizations that are classified as corporations for federal tax purposes and subject to subchapter C of the Internal Revenue Code. Topics include the federal tax classification of business organizations and the federal income tax treatment of corporate formations, operations, distributions, redemptions of stock, liquidations and reorganizations.
Partnership & Subchapter S Taxation
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
Examination of the federal income taxation of business organizations that are classified for federal tax purposes as partnerships and Subchapter S corporations. Topics include the federal tax classification of business organizations; the formation, operation and termination of partnerships; sales and exchanges of partnership interests; operating and liquidating distributions by a partnership; and the federal tax rules governing eligibility for and operation as a Subchapter S corporation.
Taxation–Advanced Income
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
A study of advanced concepts and problems in income taxation.
Taxation–Federal Procedure
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Offered periodically.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
Organization of the IRS, requests for rulings and determination letters, claims for refunds, audits, deficiency assessments, administrative settlement of tax disputes, tax litigation, tax collection, interest and civil penalties.
Estate & Gift Taxation
View detailsCrossover bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation; Wills, Trusts & Estates.
An in-depth examination and analysis of the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, rulings, and case law governing intervivos and testamentary gratuitous transfers, and the interrelationship among the federal gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax statutes.
U.S. Taxation of International Transactions
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Offered periodically.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
This course examines the U.S. taxation of foreign transactions and investments. Specifically, the course explores how the United States taxes foreign persons conducting business or investing in the U.S. (inbound transactions), and how it taxes U.S. persons conducting business or investing in foreign countries (outbound transactions). Topics covered include the source of income and deductions; the U.S. taxation of business and investment income of foreign persons; the U.S. foreign tax credit system; anti-deferral regimes such as the provisions that apply to controlled foreign corporations; and the effect of tax treaties into which the U.S. has entered.
Federal Tax Research
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Graded honors pass, pass, low pass, or fail. Normally offered as an intersession course.
This course will cover the fundamentals of researching topics in federal taxation. Students will learn how to utilize the resources available in the CCH and RIA versions of the federal income tax codes, the secondary materials available to research tax topics, the different tax reporters and how to find cases therein, how to find the materials provided by the IRS (Rev. Rulings/Procedures, Private Letter Rulings, Internal Revenue Bulletins, etc.), how to find the legislative history of code sections (including legislative history for the 1939 and 1954 Internal Revenue Code), and the computer research available on Westlaw, Lexis and RIA Checkpoint.
Corporate Finance Law
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Offered periodically.
Prerequisite: Corporations.
Legal aspects of financing business enterprises including the legal problems of the public issue of securities, private debt, revolving lines of credit and venture capital. Asset and stock acquisitions will be considered, along with corporate merger and reorganizations.
Government Process Clinic/Academic Internship
View detailsThree or four semester hours credit.
Prerequisites: Successful completion of all courses required for graduation (with the exception of the substantial writing requirement) and not less than 45 credit hours and a 2.8 grade point average. Completion of or concurrent enrollment in Texas Pretrial Procedure is recommended.
Students arrange their own placements with local governmental agencies. Potential placements include the Texas Attorney General’s Office, the legal department of the City of South Texas College of Law, the Harris County Attorney’s Office, the EEOC, the IRS, the Office of Homeland Security, and many others. These placements provide access to the South Texas College of Law legal community and give law students the opportunity to expand their professional skills and identify challenging and fulfilling work possibilities.
Administration of Estates & Guardianships
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Two semester hours credit. Offered periodically.
Prerequisites: Wills, Trusts & Estates.
A skills-based, practice-focused study in the area of wills and estate administration including guardianship representation, basic estate planning, creditor claims, client development, fiduciary responsibility, and the role of the personal representative in decedents’ estates.
Estate Planning Clinic
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year. Maximum of eight students.
Prerequisites: Students must have successfully completed a minimum of 45 semester hours and must have taken or be concurrently taking Wills, Trusts & Estates or a Probate Clinic.
This hands-on civil practice clinic targets skills development in client interviewing and counseling and transactional document drafting. These cases tend to be balanced between client counseling and intensive document drafting. There is some limited skill development in legal research, file documentation and maintenance, legal and case theory development, and professional development. The beginning of the course will teach students basic interviewing skills using classroom lecture components, simulations, a live-client file, and a supervised live-client interview in which students interview a client with modest estate planning needs. Subsequently and within the contextual setting of each client’s articulated needs and goals, students draft the appropriate array of seven potential estate planning documents.
Employee Benefits Law
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Offered periodically.
This course will provide an overview of the basic concepts, purposes, and scope of ERISA’s (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) regulatory scheme; explore the substantive and procedural regulation of pension and welfare benefit plans; and discuss the impact of ERISA and ERISA preemption on diverse areas of practice, both transaction and litigation based.
Stage 3
Consider earlier courses plus one or more from below
Interviewing & Counseling
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Graded honors pass, pass, low pass, or fail. Normally offered as an intersession course.
Examination of the attorney-client relationship, including establishing the relationship in the initial interview; billing arrangements; the importance of continuing communications; case analysis; decision-making; counseling with the client as to case development and strategy; preparation of the client for settlement negotiations as well as trial; termination of the relationship, including the collection of fees. Students will conduct several mock interviews throughout the course.
Nonprofit Incorporation
View detailsOne semester hour credit. Graded honors pass, pass, low pass, or fail. Normally offered as an intersession course.
Students will learn how to incorporate various types of nonprofit entities, how to apply for state and federal tax exemption, and special legal issues to keep in mind as they counsel startup nonprofits. At the end of the course, students should have the necessary knowledge and practice to perform a complete incorporation for a nonprofit organization in Texas. Students will complete exercises of drafting articles of incorporation and bylaws, obtaining an Employer Identification Number from the IRS, applying for 501(c)(3) status, etc. Course requires completion of a drafting project within 28 days after the two days of class lecture.
Estate Planning
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation; Wills, Trusts & Estates; Estate & Gift Taxation.
Deals with practical aspects of estate planning, with the following major objectives: first, necessity for counsel to possess thorough understanding of client’s objectives relating to family and property, size and composition of client’s assets and liabilities, and for counsel to address practicality of drafting instruments to accomplish those objectives under state law; second, planning of testamentary documents for net estates expected not to exceed the applicable exclusion amount; third, planning of testamentary documents for larger estates, including use of bypass trusts and marital deduction trusts as well as including generation-skipping planning, and use of charitable gifts; fourth, consideration of reduction of size of probate estate through intervivos transactions designed to accomplish objectives of client; fifth, use of postmortem options; and sixth, review and consideration of selected types of transactions currently in use by the practicing bar.
Probate Clinic
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Normally offered twice each academic year. Maximum of eight students.
Prerequisites: Students must have successfully completed a minimum of 45 semester hours and Wills, Trusts & Estates; the Guardianship Clinic; or the Estate Planning Clinic.
This hands-on civil practice clinic develops skills in factual investigation, client interviewing and counseling, legal research, document drafting (transactional and/or court-related), file documentation and maintenance, legal and case theory development, and professional development. The beginning of the course teaches students critical factual investigation and interviewing skills using classroom lecture components, simulations, a live-client file, and a supervised live-client interview. Students conduct a supervised interview of a client seeking to transfer property from a testate or intestate decedent to potential beneficiaries taking into consideration estate assets, property characterization, estate liquidity, and debt. Subsequently and within the contextual setting of each client’s articulated needs and goals, students research the appropriate options consistent with the client’s goals, counsel the client in a supervised setting, and draft the appropriate transactional or court-related documents. If filing is anticipated, students prosecute the case in a Harris County probate court.