Storyline: Each chapter begins with a storyline that introduces a set of characters facing specific tax-related situations. This revolutionary approach to teaching tax emphasizes real people facing real tax dilemmas. Students learn to apply practical tax information to specific business and personal situations. Each chapter’s examples are related to the storyline, giving students the opportunities to learn a set of client information and apply that data.

Taxes in the Real World are short boxes used throughout the book to demonstrate the real-world use of tax concepts. Current articles on tax issues, real-world application of chapter-specific tax rules, and short vignettes on popular news in tax are some of the issues covered in Taxes in the Real World boxes.

Examples are the cornerstone of any textbook covering taxation. For this reason, McGraw-Hill's Taxation took special care to create clear and helpful examples that relate to the storyline of the chapter. Students learn to refer to the facts presented in the storyline and apply them to other scenarios—in this way, they build a greater base of knowledge through application. Many examples also include “What if?” scenarios that add more complexity to the example or explore related tax concepts.

Key Facts provide quick synopses of the critical pieces of information presented throughout each chapter.

Summary: A unique feature of McGraw-Hill's Taxation is the end of chapter summary organized around learning objectives. Each objective has a brief, bullet-point summary that covers the major topics and concepts for that chapter, including references to critical exhibits and examples.

Questions are provided for each of the major concepts in each chapter, providing students with an opportunity to review key parts of the chapter and answer evocative questions about what they have learned. Each question is linked to a learning objective.

Problems are designed to test the comprehension of more complex topics. Each problem at the end of the chapter is tied to that chapter’s learning objective, with multiple problems for critical topics.

Research Problems are special problems throughout the end of the chapter’s assignment material. These require students to do both basic and more complex research on topics outside of the scope of the book. Each Research Problem includes an icon to differentiate it from regular problems.

Planning Problems are another unique set of problems, also located at the end of the chapter’s assignment material. These require students to test their tax planning skills after covering the chapter’s topics. Each Planning Problem includes an icon to differentiate it from regular problems.

Comprehensive and Tax Return Problems address multiple concepts in a single problem. Comprehensive problems are ideal for cumulative topics; for this reason, they are located at the end of all chapters. In the end of book Appendix C, we include Tax Return Problems that cover multiple chapters.