Graduate Tax

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Change in Professional Responsibility Requirement.  First, the symposium scheduled for November 8, 2008 has been cancelled.  Effective September 1, 2008, the professional responsibility symposium has been reformatted.  Click here for more information.

Upcoming Events

November 12-13, 2008
19th Annual Philadelphia Tax Conference

This is a wonderful conference with cutting-edge topics and top-notch speakers.  Panel Chairs include Villanova Graduate Tax adjunct faculty members Neil Feinstein and Edward Liva.  The event is FREE for full-time JD, LL.M and M.T. students.  Note: On Wednesday, November 12th from 5:15 to 6:15 there is a Networking Cocktail Hour.  Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity!  Click here for the agenda.

Note: New Graduate Tax Program Location

The Graduate Tax Program office is now located in the ANNEX building directly outside of the upper side entrance to the law school.

Attention: The Job Opportunities classroom is now on Blackboard.  Please self-enroll for access to the latest job announcements and career tips for Graduate Tax students.

Message from the Director Leslie M. Book Professor of Law Director, Graduate Tax Program

Drawing on the talent and experience of some of the nation’s top practitioners, government attorneys and full-time faculty from both the Villanova University School of Law and the Villanova School of Business, the Villanova Graduate Tax Program offers our students access to both depth and breadth in the field of taxation. With our core curriculum, our nationally recognized strength in corporate, partnership and international tax and over 30 elective classes, our fall, spring and summer semesters and evening classes provide flexibility and ample opportunities for both full-time and part-time students. Whether you wish to get a general exposure to tax practice or to specialize in discrete practice areas like estate planning, employee benefits or tax litigation, the Graduate Tax Program can help you achieve your career goals.

This is an exciting time for the Graduate Tax Program. Here is just a sampling of what makes this a particularly opportune time to join our program: we are moving in to a world-class new facility in the fall of 2009 located in the beautiful Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia adjacent to public transportation; as of 2008, we are partnering with the Law School’s esteemed Federal Tax Clinic to provide additional opportunities for Graduate Tax students to gain practical client experience, including offering a one-week intensive training drawing on an innovative simulated trial experience backstopped by video critiques of student performance; and we are evolving our estate planning certificate program to include a 2-semester planning component that will integrate practical tips for advising high net worth individuals in a dynamic client-centered environment.

A successful graduate program must have caring and talented teachers and administrators.  Students in our program have access to our full-time and adjunct faculty, who are not only are leaders in their fields, but are deeply engaged and accessible teachers. We have recently hired an assistant director who is an experienced tax lawyer who is available to counsel students in areas from course registration to career development.  I welcome the opportunity to talk with you further about how the Villanova Graduate Tax Program could be the right fit for your educational needs and career development.

Overview

The Villanova University interdisciplinary Graduate Tax Program is conducted (in the evenings) jointly by the School of Law and the Villanova School of Business. Students are drawn from both the legal and accounting professions and interact, in and out of the classroom, in an educational dimension that broadens and sharpens their understanding both of federal tax law and procedure, and of the interests and aims of the opposite discipline.

In addition, because the full-time and adjunct faculty includes both attorneys and accountants who specialize in taxation, the substantive course content is flavored by their various backgrounds and approaches. The end result is a rich program that provides students with a working understanding of basic concepts, the practical application of tax principles, and current tax policy issues for use in the planning, compliance and controversy areas of tax practice.

The Program is designed and presented with the expectation that its graduates will emerge from it with significantly enhanced practical skills for issue identification and problem solving in the tax area, together with a heightened sensitivity to their professional role in the tax system and the role of that system in individual, commercial and financial affairs. Professional responsibility in tax practice is stressed, and students are encouraged to use the digital research and communication facilities of the law school.

The course requirements for the attorney’s Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree and the accountant’s Master of Taxation (M.T.) degree are very similar. While some of the elective offerings may have more appeal to members of one profession than the other, many courses, particularly those involving current planning and transactional issues, have a class composition that contains the appropriate mix of each profession necessary for a meaningful interrelationship between the two.

The present enrollment of approximately 250 degree candidates strikes a desirable balance between a program large enough to offer a broad selection of courses, yet not so large that the individual student is lost in the crowd.

In addition, certificate programs in Estate Planning and Employee Benefits provide qualified professionals with an intense course of study in these two speciality areas. They are separately described below.

For additional information about the Program email Linda Vines, call 610-519-4533, or call toll-free 1-888-GRAD-TAX.

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