He has also served as a Consultant to a number of governments on their tax policy including South Africa, Botswana,the United Kingdom, the British Virgin Islands,The Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla and Montserrat.
For Thomson-West he is the revisions author of eight topics for Mertens Law of Federal Income Taxation: Treatise and Rulings, totaling over 3,000 pages, including Nonresident Aliens & Foreign Corps and co-author for Claims for Refunds, Income Tax Returns and Disclosures and the Author for Thomson Tax for the US Chapter on International Tax Systems and Planning Techniques. He is the revising co-author of Tax & Trade Briefs, Tax Havens of the World as well as Treaty Withholding Guide, Matthew Bender (New York). He has written numerous books, treatises, and articles and made many professional presentations around the world.
William Byrnes earned his B.A., Pol'y Economics at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana; a J.D at Loyola University School of Law, New Orleans, Louisiana; an LL.M. at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and a Fellowship at the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Professor Byrne's dissertation for his three year Fellowship at the International Board of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) in Amsterdam, Netherlands and the University of Amsterdam was on International Transfer Pricing.

KJ- How did you create an international tax program that connects corporate tax departments, international government tax authorities and legal and accounting firm professionals around the world?

WB- In 1995, I found myself challenged on how to reach out to the global tax community for educational purposes. At the time, I was teaching at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa and my challenge was how to reach out from a classroom in South Africa to the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong and other international locations for educational purposes. The cost and time to travel to South Africa from these foreign locations to learn these international tax courses did not make it attainable for everyone. People were literally flying to South Africa to take international tax courses yet it was not possible for everyone interested. It was then that the internet brought about the opportunity to reach out to teach international tax courses to many people around the world.
What really forced me to go online with an international tax training program was an accident. I was told that I may be paralyzed, may never walk again and be unable to travel freely. Suddenly, I was forced to immediately address how to be productive educating people on international tax issues. In 1997, I was working full time at Coopers & Lybrand, Johannesburg, South Africa office serving an international client base and also working part time as a Professor at the University of Johannesburg. My goal was to train tax staff at a competency level, not just in my tax department in my office and in my country, but also across the globe in other foreign tax jurisdictions.
At the same time, I began to lobby with the American Bar Association for an accredited legal tax program. The question presented was does this tax program belong in a law school or a business school. The tax program we ultimately developed is really a flexible high bred international tax program because it teaches both the accountancy side of the business and jurisprudence law perspective. This program allows both tax lawyers and tax accountants to benefit from a tax program offered by an American Bar Association accredited law school. I had to make a decision as to where these international courses would be taught, eventually choosing Thomas Jefferson School of Law because of its cutting edge technology being built into its new $100 million dollar learning center. The international tax program is more research based and the students have access to a substantial international tax research library and database. In fact, it has turned out that one of the most value added features of being enrolled in our tax program is your access to our law library and research databases. We have all of the English speaking databases and even foreign speaking databases that are translated into English including Islamic Law and China’s laws. We actually offer everyone enrolled in our program access to and training on the tax planning software that the big companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for annually.


KJ- Lead tax executives of major corporations have privately mentioned the challenges of establishing an adequate research library including access to very expensive tax research software and databases. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have these resources available to their entire tax department. What you are telling me is that anyone enrolled in your tax program has access to the law schools tax research library. Is that right?

WB- Correct! You know that a tax library, at a minimum, for an individual practicing international tax would cost fifty thousand dollars. This would merely be for an individual who is just getting started with an international tax law library. However, having access to an international tax law library with software products that cover multiple foreign jurisdictions would cost minimally one hundred thousand dollars for an individual “annually”. Our students save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually having access to our tax research library. This is a value added benefit to any person or company who enrolls their tax professionals in our online international tax program.


KJ- Corporate tax departments, law firms, public accounting firms and government tax agencies have the responsibility to properly train their tax professionals to ensure they are technically current on ever changing domestic and foreign tax laws. Upper management makes huge demands on their time while they concurrently have the responsibility to train the lower ranks of their tax teams. Your online tax training courses certainly address these issues and will solve many organizations training challenges.
What I experienced in your online tax class this past September 2009 frankly enlightened me. What you offer your students is a cutting edge environment to learn international tax. What is really unique about your tax law program is that you bring together international tax professionals online that people normally would never have access to in a learning environment. You are connecting very interesting and talented professionals globally in a classroom environment. I also quickly recognized the fortuitous networking opportunities and connections for everyone enrolled in your tax program. The students represent corporations, government agencies, international accounting and law firms who are tax professionals from unique and diverse locations around the globe. The fact that this international tax program connects everyone in a collaborative environment is remarkable!

WB- The opportunity to bring everyone together in an online classroom is of great benefit to all our students, especially when you think about the expense involved in bringing tax professionals together from around the world. It is an extraordinary cost for everyone to travel to one specific location for learning purposes. Additionally, not everyone has the availability of time to fly in to participate in an international tax program. You also recognize that the participants outside of this program will never have access to the full spectrum of tax and financial professionals around the world. However, our international program allows for introductions to international tax and financial professionals that they otherwise may never have the opportunity to interact with professionally. This allows them the opportunity to work together collaboratively from their desks around the globe.
A few months ago, the US government issued a report from the US Department of Education that referred to fifty-four different studies on online learning for adult learners. The study reported that online learning for adult learners was much more effective, not just slightly more effective than residential training, but much more effective. Obviously, this report proves that online learning exceeded what you could learn residentially and there are a variety of reasons for this result. Our online international tax and financial courses allow you to connect with corporate, legal, accounting and government tax professionals around the world. Imagine the convenience of taking the courses from your home or office and eliminating the expensive costs associated with travel to these international locations. Imagine the ability to meet international tax and financial professionals from foreign locations around the world; professionals that you normally would not likely meet. Imagine the value of the relationships created in this collaborative business environment when you meet international government tax authorities, tax lawyers and many other tax and financial professionals from locations that are foreign to the students in the course. Our collaborative international tax program creates opportunities to work with others who want to help you solve problems. Our global online interaction with international tax and financial professionals is impossible to replicate!


KJ- I noticed sitting next to you in the course you instructed that students were typing in questions to you during the seminar. I also like the fact that I could visually see all the participants in the online classroom on my computer screen which makes this a very unique experience.

WB- It has been shown over and over again that in a classroom setting that people may be hesitant for a variety of reasons to raise their hands and appear like they do not know the answer. However, in an online course the participants are more comfortable asking the question of the instructor merely by typing in questions throughout the classroom instruction. In fact, if they do not want to put their name on the question, they are also free to ask the question anonymously. This process actually captures ideas that are very valuable because in a classroom setting they may hesitate to ask some questions. When people do not ask important questions, it is not possible for people to be taught some of the most valuable lessons.
It is interesting to note that the courses also teach an online collaborative interaction and no one is teaching that right now. There have been case studies on companies who have a problem and open up this problem to their employees. These collaborations are great opportunities to capture ideas and allow your employees to interact with each other on these ideas, as well as interact with tax professionals in foreign jurisdictions. We teach people to look for idea generation in the lower ranks in the department in order to assist you in shaving time off the production process. This cleans up problems more quickly in the company. We teach idea management which is very new in the management consultant field. You obtain this skill set through the collaborative interaction with the participants in our program. For example, you can capture ideas for improvements on international tax compliance processes. We teach you how to capture and hold legacy company information and then build off this legacy information to continue to improve it. Everyone has the same problem of how to manage all of this information. How are you managing the tax software; how are you managing the information from multiple foreign locations and cultures? These are real challenges for tax departments today and we teach you how to deal with these challenges.


KJ- Please tell me about a memorable online class where the participants and companies clearly benefited from the program?

WB- There are many benefits to the online interaction of tax professionals from multiple tax jurisdictions around the world. For example, one course we offer is focused on Case Studies and one day we were fortunate to have a participant by the name of Aaron Gothelf. He was an enrolled student who was the International Trade Counsel at his company. In the process of the Professor doing the calculations for the case study in this class, the small fee also charged to process the paperwork for US Customs was left out of the calculation. One of the participants in the international case study course made a remark about US Customs Services adding this small additional fee to process the paperwork. Aaron Gothelf then states” You say this is a small fee when, in fact, this fee cost my department 18 million dollars last year so it is not small at all!” Aaron Gothelf went on to explain to the class participants how egregious this fee was and the other participants in the discussion starting waking up to the same issue. It was interesting listening to the collaborative exchange of ideas and students discussing what a major headache this was for their organizations. In fact, some of the participants stated that they were trying to bundle more goods together in a container in order to reduce these same fees. What started out as a case study discussion opened up the group and you could see that there was an awakening for everyone as to the impact of fees on these corporations. It also happened that we had a Revenue Agent in this particular class and they stated that they also woke up to the enormity of the fees as a result of this course. The fee was tied to shipments coming into the United States because it was a processing fee on top of the US Customs fee. It was a fee per transaction as opposed to the actual duties on the product coming into the United States through US Customs. It was a strong revenue generating deal for the US government as they were looking at it like a service based fee; however, for the companies it is an extremely large and egregious fee.


KJ- What you have created in this tax program is an impressive community for learning! This program brings together professionals from around the globe and creates collaborations that may never have occurred, unless for this program.

WB- Yes, we are able to academically connect tax lawyers, corporate tax professionals, revenue agents, professionals in Big Four and other national accounting firm professionals, Competent Authorities with the IRS and many government tax and financial professionals around the globe. Our program brings all of these people together where they generally would not have access to each other for learning and collaboration. An awakening occurs when all of these people are connected to each other that you cannot experience anywhere else. The people in our program are more engaged in these online discussions because they feel safe in this type of collaborative learning environment.


KJ- What else does your tax program teach?

WB- Imagine you are a tax lawyer and recently graduated from school and have never touched a form; imagine you have never used a database for research on international tax issues or international tax law. Often times a person starts to work for an accounting firm or a law firm and still does not have the exposure to all of these database research tools. Our international tax program allows you access to every type of tax research database out there. We teach you how to use the database and software so you are never caught off guard; we teach you how to access and use all of this information. It is very important that companies have people who know how to use and access all of these databases. Their access to domestic and international tax research databases will save thousands of dollars annually on their research and outside consulting fees. Anyone is welcome to take these courses individually or we will develop a class course for an entire corporate tax department, law firm or accounting firm.


KJ- I am certain there are many tax professionals and companies who would like to be part of this program. I understand you offer classes to people who want to earn a law degree; you also offer individual classes to anyone who wants continuing education credits; and you also offer highly tailored programs to an entire corporate tax department.

WB- Yes, we offer an educational program to tax departments who contact us to train their entire staff; we offer a program for an individual to earn their law degree and we also offer courses to individuals who want to gain more tax knowledge. Above all, we offer a very unique online training experience with the added value of new connections and contacts around the world. We also offer all of our enrolled students access to a tax research law library.

KJ- Can you provide me with a list of the current courses offered at Thomas Jefferson School of Law along with the price?

WB - Yes, please go to the following link to view all of the courses we offer including tuition.
http://www.etsearch.com/CourseListingsandTuition.pdf


For anyone interested in enrolling in this online program please click here to fill out the application.

William, thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Your perspective is valuable to the Tax Intelligence Report readers around the world and we genuinely appreciate the time you gave to share your experience.


Kathleen Jennings (KJ)
Editor, The Tax Intelligence Report
Kathleen@etsearch.com

William H. Byrnes (WB)
Associate Dean
Thomas Jefferson School of Law
San Diego, CA
wbyrnes@tjsl.edu