This course provides a foundational understanding of the role taxes play in strategic business decisions. We'll explore taxation not just as a compliance burden but as a critical element of business strategy, valuable across different industries, geographic locations, and taxpayer types. You will learn how to apply an "all taxes, all parties, all costs" framework to improve decision-making related to investment and retirement planning, compensation planning, choice of organizational form, mergers and acquisitions, operating in different states and countries, estate planning, and more. Through a mix of core principles and practical case studies, you will gain hands-on experience analyzing business tax strategies. A recurring theme will be linking concepts from corporate finance, financial accounting, business law, and economics to achieve a more complete understanding of the role of taxes in business strategy. We will also apply concepts to current events and to a constantly evolving tax landscape.
The following groups will benefit from this course: financial executives (e.g., CFOs), entrepreneurs, private equity professionals, investment bankers, financial analysts, and consultants who want to have a competitive advantage by understanding how taxes impact the structure and value of various types of transactions.
Topics include the following: taxation of different investment vehicles (including retirement vehicles such as IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401(k)s); taxation of executive compensation (e.g., incentive stock options and other equity-based pay); taxation of different businesses types (e.g., C Corps, S Corps, partnerships, and LLCs); taxation of mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; multijurisdictional taxation (e.g., tax rules across states and across countries); estate tax planning; and others.
