First Week Reading Assignments

First Readings for Spring 2024

This may not be an exclusive listing of all faculty members’ first assignment and class meeting notices. If you do not see a class that you are in listed below, it may be necessary to check with the faculty member.

Dates for Spring 2024

  • The form for submitting assignments will be activated on Monday, December 11, 2023.
    • Assignments will begin to be posted Monday, December 11, 2023.
  • The form for submitting assignments will be deactivated on Monday, February 5, 2024.
    • Assignments will be removed on February 5, 2024.

State and Local Tax (LAWS 640 §001)

Instructor Name(s)

Handel

Textbook Information

Text: Richard D. Pomp, Volumes I and II State & Local Taxation (9th ed. 2019), handouts, and statutes, cases, and regulations you obtain from TWEN or by using Westlaw or Lexis.

General Assignment Information

Assignments for the first four or five classes (two to three weeks):

For the first class, download and review the following materials from TWEN: About State and Local Tax, Syllabus, and Tax Quotes. If you are taking the course for 3 credits, download and review the Writing Requirement Memo handout. If you are taking the course for 2 credits, download and review the SALT Writing Assignments handout. The numbers next to the other handouts correspond to the relevant unit on the Syllabus. Please ask any questions you may have in class or by email.

Sometime during the first two or three classes, I will call on you to introduce yourself to the class. You should include why you signed up for this class and may include anything else you want to say to introduce yourself. You might (or might not) include tax or interesting (not mutually exclusive) job experiences; college and/or graduate school majors; why you applied to law school, and (other than paying off your loans) what you’d like to do after graduation.

Spend 10 or 15 minutes listing criteria you think can be used to determine if a tax law is “good” or “bad,” including how you would judge if it is “fair.” I am not asking or expecting you to do any research to prepare this list. You will not hand it in; we will discuss it—probably in the third or fourth class.

I strongly suggest you use some of the time during the first 2 weeks to start reading the portions of the Pomp casebook assigned in Unit 4 of the syllabus and then the Unitary Business handout. They will help with the first writing assignment, and if you don’t start early, it will be a very long assignment when you get to it.