This course is an introduction to the legal system and lawyer's reasoning. It also gives an overview of the Australian tax system, with emphasis on income tax. It deals, in some depth, with key income tax concepts. The skills of handling cases and statutes are developed using income tax material. The course builds these skills systematically, from the basic skill of extracting the binding rule from a case and consciously addressing the choices delegated to judges and bureaucrats by statutes, to skills of synthesising groups of cases, dealing with conflict and ambiguity in case law and applying statutes and cases to real world problems. In the final module, the policy implications of tax decisions are introduced. The course is the foundation for a first tier university approach to tax and it is constructed on this premise. A critical approach is emphasised throughout. Emphasis is put on the increasing importance of statutory construction and the new approaches necessary to adapt to a simplified tax system and rapid change. Students are encouraged to think beyond the traditional categories in textbooks which have inhibited effective critical thinking and to understand how key income tax concepts operate across traditional categories.

This course aims to:

Flexible Learning