Rethinking International Tax Law

This is a 6-week broad base introductory-type course on international tax law, covering corporate tax law systems, transfer pricing, and tax planning. The lecturers speak at an appropriate pace and are interesting enough to keep you awake. They also provide lots of links to external material for reading. As I am new to tax law, the subject is fascinating to me.

The problem I have been encountering in the course is that English is probably not the first language of the lecturers, so you get unclear English throughout the course. I got confused regularly about what the lecturers were saying, for example whether a phrase they were using, "interest receipt", was a term of art, or as another example where the lecturer said that "the US company will not tax any income of the Dutch CV until it makes a distribution to the US company", whether they meant that the US, and not US company, will not tax any income.

It gets tiresome having to ask for clarification in the forums. Further, most of the teaching staff and mentors are inactive. I wonder if the lecturers should have gotten an English-speaking person to review the course before adding it to Coursera.

Because of issues like this I found myself Googling a lot, and would have found it easier to manage if there was some recommended textbook that I could read and that the course was based on. I may drop out soon just because it might be more efficient to study one good tax law textbook, than go through lectures getting confused and having to Google and piece together explanations from multiple sources.

Perhaps one last point is that this appears to be more of a business course on international tax, not an international tax LAW course. There aren't really any laws discussed, but merely policies.

Heartily recommend this course. I am a qualified CPA, but had qualified 17 years back and so this was a brilliant course to update myself on the latest developments in international taxation and harmonisation amongst countries, as well as the OECD's "BEPS" developments in recent years, and the EUs "State Aid" rules, all extremely relevant to my work in an international/European finance role within an MNE. Whilst much of the material was recorded and prepared in 2015-16, it was still extremely relevant in terms of understanding the principles underlying international taxation, and the detail behind the various methods adopted (and loopholes used) in tax planning; and it was easy to find more recent versions of documents, for example where the draft BEPS proposals or State Aid guidance had in the meantime been finalised. I think the highlight of the course for me were the interviews, particularly with Professor Kees van Raad who really challenged my understanding of the concepts of what a company is, what taxation is, why a corporation is taxed, just a complete twist in perception listening to him and would love to pursue further studies under him or attend any public lectures he gives; what an absolutely inspiring mind (I would recommend his Module 2 interview as a great taster).

I am a corporate in-house counsel. Tax is not my specialty but I needed to understand the basic concepts of corporate tax planning, why at the level of parent company we did certain things, I had to understand the concepts and jargons.

This course was the perfect help that I needed. The course is designed in such a way that a basic learner would be introduced to the basic concepts of corporate tax planning, with jargons, theories and material to read. For somebody who is looking for a bit more extensive learning, it has an advanced track embedded into it.

What I particularly liked about this course - a) the transcripts of each module which I used as notes and a recap for each module; b) the required and recommended reading material (mind you, the required reading is really needed); c) the assignments and quiz (gives you a sense of responsibility); d) Coursera - for such ease of learning platform.

Only improvement suggestion - some of the videos and reading material needs to be updated to the current situations in 2021.

Otherwise, for the money one pays, this Course is way too much worth! Highly recommended!