Georgetown University Master of Studies in Law in Taxation in 2027

Georgetown's Master of Studies in Law (M.S.L.) in Taxation is an online, 24-credit degree for experienced tax professionals who are not attorneys, with no required courses beyond a basic tax prerequisite and a catalog drawn from the same faculty as its Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Taxation.

Georgetown Law's Graduate Tax Program built this degree for experienced tax professionals who aren't lawyers, and you complete it online while you keep working. You sit in the same classes and take the same final exams as students in the Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Taxation, and you are graded on the same curve. The Graduate Tax Program draws on more than 100 professors.

Its adjuncts include practitioners at major law and accounting firms, non-profit organizations and think-tanks, plus top government officials at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Treasury and the Department of Justice, and judges at the U.S. Tax Court. The school points out that the people who make tax law and policy work within walking distance of the Law Center in Washington.

Georgetown reserves the M.S.L. for non-lawyer tax professionals who want a full understanding of tax law, and its faculty bring in practicing lawyers along with officials from Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service and the courts. You can add the Certificate in International Taxation if you'd like a visible specialty.

Courses such as Tax Practice and Procedure cover the administration and enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code, including audit procedures, administrative appeals, collection, refund claims and practice before the IRS. For the law school as a whole, a law-school directory blog, lexinter.net, reports that 96.1% of 2023-24 graduates had full-time jobs within ten months.

Where this degree can lead: Masters in Taxation Jobs.

Who It Fits

• Experienced tax professionals without a law degree: the program is open to people who aren't attorneys, and your work experience is part of what makes you a fit.
• Working accountants and advisors who want legal depth: the online program is designed to be part-time for working professionals, with up to three years to finish.
• Self-directed learners: outside the prerequisite, the only requirement is 24 credit hours of tax law, so you design the program around your own goals.
• People focused on international work: you can earn a Certificate in International Taxation alongside the degree, and those credits count toward the 24.
• Anyone who wants a head start before the first semester: the free, 12-hour online Foundations of Federal Income Taxation course meets the federal income tax prerequisite.

There are no formal course requirements other than the basic federal income taxation prerequisite and the 24 credit hours, and all 24 credits must come from tax law offerings. Most graduate tax classes carry two credits each, so you'll assemble roughly a dozen courses. The catalog is broad.

For corporate work you can take Corporate Income Tax Law I and II, Consolidated Returns and Taxation of Mergers and Acquisitions. For partnerships there is Advanced Partnership Taxation, which focuses on the skills needed to advise on partnership structuring, including drafting the agreement and allocating tax items.

International options include U.S. International Inbound Tax, U.S. International Outbound Tax, Transfer Pricing and Tax Treaties. Practice-oriented classes include Tax Research and Writing, Tax Practice and Procedure in both its administrative and litigation versions, Criminal Tax Law and Procedure, and Ethics in Tax Law.

Electives reach into State and Local Taxation, Taxation of Digital Assets, Taxation of Energy Markets, Taxation of Financial Institutions and Private Equity and Hedge Funds.

Courses the School Names

• Advanced Partnership Taxation
• Corporate Income Tax Law I and II
• State and Local Taxation
• Tax Practice and Procedure (Administrative Practice and Litigation)
• Tax Research and Writing
• Transfer Pricing
• U.S. International Inbound Tax and Outbound Tax
• Taxation of Digital Assets

Standout Features

• Free 12-hour online non-credit Foundations of Federal Income Taxation course satisfies the federal income tax prerequisite
• M.S.L. students take the same final exams as the LL.M. in Taxation students and are graded on the same curve

Georgetown sets the outer limits at three years part-time or one academic year full-time, and full-time study is considered case by case. The online program is designed as part-time for working professionals. The school's online tax page, which covers the classes M.S.L. and LL.M. students share, says part-time LL.M. students typically take two to six credits a semester and finish in two or three years.

The prerequisite course opens on June 1 each year and must be finished before the first week of the fall semester, so you can complete it over the summer before you begin. If you add the Certificate in International Taxation, you need 10 specialization credits in international tax, and they're part of, not on top of, the 24 credits.

You need 24 credits, and most tax classes are two credits each, so your tuition builds up one short course at a time as you pick your schedule. The foundational tax course that satisfies the prerequisite is free, and it takes about 12 hours online.

Georgetown Law awards a small number of partial merit-based scholarships to graduate degree applicants. Because you decide how many credits you take each semester, you also control how your payments are spread across the two or three years.

The program is entirely online. According to the school's online program page, the majority of classes are asynchronous, meaning you get access to the class videos within 24 hours after the live class meets. So you can watch on your own schedule, and the live class is there if you'd like to join it.

A handful of courses don't follow that pattern and do meet live on set days and times. Most online students complete a take-home exam at the end of the semester. Online students receive a student ID that gives access to all campus buildings, may attend classes in person on a space-available basis, and have electronic library resources including Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg and RIA Checkpoint.

They also get the same individualized academic advising, career advising and access to the Symplicity jobs database as on-campus students. The online student gets the same degree or certificate as on-campus students, with no note on the diploma that it's completed online.

The full rubric is on the methodology page.

People who have been through Georgetown's tax program talk about the catalog and the network. A part-time online M.S.L. student posting on a professional forum in 2020 said the program was worth it for the detail and nuance of tax law that they wouldn't have picked up on the job, and that being in the program helped them move into a specialty tax group at their firm.

In 2024, a current tax LL.M. student on the same kind of forum said the program is awesome from a technical standpoint and flexible, with lots of networking and outstanding professors. A former LL.M. graduate added that firms usually see a Georgetown tax LL.M. as a plus and called the network and externship offerings great.

On the ranking side, U.S. News lists Georgetown second in its tax law specialty ranking, and TaxProf Blog's April 2026 table of the 2026-27 U.S. News results shows the same order.

• Which elective courses are offered online each semester, and how far ahead is the schedule posted?
• Can I take the 12-hour Foundations of Federal Income Taxation course over the summer before I start?
• How is full-time study approved, and what does the case-by-case review look for?
• How do the partial merit scholarships work for M.S.L. applicants?
• Which courses count toward the Certificate in International Taxation?

• Best Master's in Taxation Rank 30 of 78, master's
• Online Master's in Taxation Rank 15 of 41, master's
• Best 100% Online Programs Rank 14 of 40, master's
• Part-Time Programs Rank 16 of 39, master's
• Best for Working Professionals Rank 19 of 46, master's
• Best for Parents Rank 19 of 46, master's
• Private University Programs Rank 16 of 43, master's
• LLM in Taxation Rank 14 of 22, master's
• International Taxation Rank 7 of 12, master's

• Taxation

  LL.M., Master's

  Hybrid Score 64.2

• Boston University

  LLM in Taxation

  Massachusetts Score 57.2

• Northwestern University

  Taxation

  Illinois Score 57.5

• University of Washington

  Master of Science in Taxation

  Washington Score 57.0

• University at Albany

  Master of Science in Taxation

  New York Score 57.7