Prof. Bill Streng

Bill Streng

Federal Income Tax

I wish I had known this before I signed up for this class, but Federal Income Tax has not been on the Texas bar exam for many years, and if it does ever come up it is only a subpart of a single essay question (there are 12 essays total on the bar exam). What this translates to is: don't take tax solely because its a "bar course", the BarBri prep class on tax is more than enough to cover you. On to

Streng's class...

Bill Streng is a nice guy, he really is. The tax code is not exactly edge of your seat stuff, but he does an admirable job of making the cases as interesting as possible. His asides in class are pretty funny - Streng has a good sense of humor. He calls on people randomly in class with questions about the reading, but if you don't know, just say so - no big deal. The reading load is moderate, bordering on the light, relative to other 4 credit classes. Believe it or not, the casebook is actually one of the best I've used in law school...the explanations and examples are clear and concise and the cases are surprisingly readable. And that's not just me, a significant number of people in the class liked it too.

As the old saying goes "...death and taxes" so some of the things you'll learn you get to apply to your real life, which makes a refreshing change.

Exam: Our final exam was (i) identical in structure to the sample exam, and (ii) very, very similar in substantive content. This translates to old exams being the best kind of prep you can do for a Streng tax exam. He's amenable to discussing your answers to old exams during office hours, something I'd recommend because you'll get a lot of insight into what constitutes a "right" answer. We were allowed to bring our tax code book, casebook and outlines into the exam, though I can't remember if we could bring in commercial outlines or not.

Tax outline added 09-29-2016
Federal Income Tax outline Fall 2012 B+ added 02-24-2013
Federal Tax Outline (cheat sheet style) - added 07/06/2010
B+ tax outline, anonymously contributed (2010) added 04-02-2010
Anonymously contributed Fed Income Tax outline
Carter's Federal Income Tax Outline

The "Blonde Outline" - rumored to be so named because even a blonde could understand it.