This book is designed to guide tax students and practitioners in learning the theory and practice of income tax. It can also serve as a convenient reference tool for lawyers, accountants, and others who work in the tax field.

The book is comprised of two parts. Part I includes selected provisions of the federal Income Tax Act and related legislation. By focusing on the most important tax provisions, tax students may be better prepared to tackle other complex statutory provisions in more advanced tax classes or in the course of their professional lives.

Part II—the ‘tax novella’—is a tax teaching tool called ‘How to Manage a Difficult Tax Partner.’ The tax novella is meant to focus a tax student’s attention on the most critical ingredients that combine to form the complex stew of income tax law. The text incorporates seven core tax principles—one in each chapter—that animate the tax rules throughout the Income Tax Act. The tax novella is also designed to amuse and entertain readers, and draw them into learning tax. Readers are asked to try to answer tax problems set out at the end of each chapter to ensure the survival of the tax novella's protagonist.

Arthur Cockfield is an Associate Professor of Law at Queen's University and research fellow, Taxation Law and Policy Research Institute Monash University.

Martha O'Brien is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Victoria.