Introduction -- Unit I: The Core Structures of Income and Consumption Taxation and Tax Policy -- Chapter 1: The Essential Structure of the Income Tax -- Chapter 2: Consumption Taxation and Our Hybrid Income/Consumption -- Chapter 3: Ethical Debates, Economic Theories, and Real-World -- Chapter 4: The Contours of "Capital Expenditure" v. Expense" (or Current Depreciation) -- Unit II: Two Types of Gross Income: -- Chapter 5: § 61(a)(1) Compensation -- Chapter 6: § 61 Residual Gross Income -- Unit III: The Possibilities for Income Shifting -- Chapter 7: Gifts and Bequests -- Chapter 8: Income Shifting in the Happy Family -- Chapter 9: Income Shifting in the Fractured Family -- Unit IV: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Debt but Were Afraid To Ask -- Chapter 10: Borrowing and Lending -- Chapter 11: The Bad-Debt Deduction (for Lenders) and Debt-Discharge Income (for Borrowers) -- Chapter 12: Debt and Property -- Unit V: The Ownership and Disposition of Property -- Chapter 13: Properly Accounting for, and the Nonrecognition of, -- Chapter 14: Depreciation and Amortization in a Realization-Based Income Tax -- Chapter 15: Capital Gains and Losses -- Chapter 16: Tax Shelters -- Unit VI: Distinguishing Between IncomeProducing Activities and Personal Consumptionand the Personal Consumption Tax Expenditures -- Chapter 17: On Human Capital -- Chapter 18: Homes, Health, Charity, and More -- Chapter 19: Gambling and Hobby Losses -- Chapter 20: Allocating Costs Between Income Production and Personal -- Unit VII: The Taxable Year and Methods of Accounting -- Chapter 21: The Taxable Year -- Chapter 22: Methods of Accounting

This textbook is not intended to be an exhaustive treatise; rather, it is intended to be far more useful than that for beginning tax law students by equipping the novice not merely with unmoored detail but rather with a rich blueprint that illuminates the deeper structural framework on which that detail hangs (sometimes crookedly). Chapter 1 outlines the conceptual meaning of the term "income" for uniquely tax purposes (as opposed to financial accounting or trust law purposes, for example) and examines the Internal Revenue Code provisions that translate this larger conceptual construct into positive law. Chapter 2 explores various forms of consumption taxation because the modern Internal Revenue Code is best perceived as a hybrid income-consumption tax that also contains many provisions-for wise or unwise nontax policy reasons-that are inconsistent with both forms of taxation. Chapter 3 then provides students with the story of how we got to where we are today, important context about the distribution of the tax burden, the budget, and economic trends, as well as material on ethical debates, economic theories, and politics as they affect taxation. Armed with this larger blueprint, students are then in a much better position to see how the myriad pieces that follow throughout the remaining 19 chapters fit into this bigger picture, whether comfortably or uncomfortably. For example, they are in a better position to appreciate how applying the income tax rules for debt to a debt-financed investment afforded more favorable consumption tax treatment creates tax arbitrage problems. Congress and the courts then must combat these tax shelter opportunities (sometimes ineffectively) with both statutory and common law weapons. Stated another way, students are in a better position to appreciate how the tax system can sometimes be used to generate (or combat) unfair and economically inefficient rent-seeking behavior.

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In English.

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