2003-2004

Report for 2003-04

1) Visitors

In addition to several short term visitors we were very pleased to welcome Chris Wales and Steven Bank. Chris spent his ‘gardening leave’ with us after serving as Special Adviser on corporate tax to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has since become Vice President at Goldman Sachs. He was a regular visitor and worked downstairs in the ground floor of the building relishing the peace of the building. He also participated in some of the LLM classes.

Steve Bank has been working for some time with Prof Brian Cheffins and so his visit was sponsored in cooperation with 3CL.

2) Workshops

We held seven tax law workshops in 2003-04. These followed the model so successfully tried in 2002-03 As last year these were organised by Valentina Steele of the University’s Institute for Continuing Education, Madingley Hall

Our speakers and their topics were:

  • Thursday 8th October - Prof Michael Lang, Vienna, Taxation of Groups in Austria and Germany - and the impact of the ECJ non-discrimination decisions on those countries
  • Friday 31st October - Prof Kees van Raad Taxation of groups in the Netherlands; Prof van Raad also talked about the effects of the ECJ non-discrimination decisions on the Dutch tax system
  • Monday 15th December - Prof Brian Arnold. Former Professor of Tax Law and Director of the National Tax Law Centre London, Ontario talked about Canada’s 15 year experience of its General Anti-Avoidance rule
  • Friday 16th January - We held a more conventional (but still whole day) workshop with several speakers rather than one. We considered the application of accounting principles to the determination of taxable profits. Our speakers, in running order, were Prof Geoffrey Whittington of the International Standards Accounting Board, Mr Peter Holgate of PricewaterhousCoopers, Mr Graeme Macdonald, formerly of the University of Kent and author of the IFS’ TLRC Discussion paper 2 on this topic and Prof Judith Freedman, KPMG Professor of Tax law in the University of Oxford
  • Friday 20th February - Professor María Teresa Soler Roch of Alicante University talked about the taxation of groups of companies in Spanish tax law
  • Friday 12th March - Prof Marty MacMahon from the University of Florida (Gainesville) talked about the current state of the US judicial anti-avoidance doctrines
  • Friday 7th May - We gave further consideration of accounting principles and problems moving from the more general aspects in January to consider current issues arising from the EC-driven move towards the use International Accounting Standards

To celebrate the support give to the Centre by KPMG we held this conference in KPMG HeadQuarters in Salisbury Square London. Many of our speakers were drawn form the ranks of KPMG partners. In running order our speakers were Joanna Osborne, Technical Accounting Partner, KPMG, Judith Freeman, KPMG Professor of Taxation Law, University of Oxford, Andrew Vials, Senior Technical Accounting Partner, KPMG, Sarah Lane, Tax Director, KPMG, Lynn Pearcy, Technical Accounting Partner, KPMG and Mike McGowan, Tax Partner, KPMG.

3) The Second Tax Law History Conference July 2004

The second tax law history conference, held at Lucy Cavendish College Cambridge in July 2004 and was another success.

John Avery Jones started proceedings by identifying the legal issues with which our early Special Commissioners had to deal while Chantal Stebbings gave us a nicely complementary paper on problems taxpayers had in gaining access to the Special Commissioners in the nineteenth century. Sally Brierley of St John’s College, Cambridge talked about valuation and local taxation in nineteenth century England and Wales and helped us, by analogy, with our Schedule A.

John Pearce of the Inland Revenue traced the rise of the concept of total income in UK income tax law 1842 to 1952. Margaret McKerchar and Cynthia Coleman from the University of Sydney talked about the judicial concept of income in Australia – with half an eye on McGuckian. Rodney Fisher from ATAX later gave us a talk on Australia and Canada and differences between them.

Philip Baker gave us the life story of Jasper Moore who wrote a tax planning book in the 1930s. Then David Stopforth talked about the official deliberations on capital gains tax from 1955 to 1960 showing the interchanges Anthony Eden and his Chancellor Harold Macmillan. Assaf Likhovski from Tel Aviv University gave us insights into the Duke of Westminter’s case and disagreed with Robert Stevens’ well known class-based explanation even though endorsed by Lord Walker (120 LQR 412 at 416).

Jane Frecknall Hughes from Leeds University Business School talked about the concept of taxation and the age of enlightenment, taking us from Locke to Bentham. Andrew Lewis, now Professor of Comparative Legal History at UCL, took us even further back when talking about tithes and considering whether they were taxes. Lynne Oats, from Warwick Business School, and Pauline Sadler, from Curtin University of Technology traced the decline and eventual repeal of the stamp duty on newspapers in the nineteenth century.

This year we welcomed participants from the US; Steve Bank from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Reuven Avi Yonah from Michigan gave us some contrasting views on the US Corporate Income Tax of 1909 and the extent to which its intention was to regulate corporate power. The American theme continued with Ajay Mehrotra from Indiana (Bloomington) talking about the role of lawyers in the US Treasury during World War I and Carolyn Jones, now Dean of the Iowa Law School, talking about raising money for the US Treasury in World War II and in particular way in which people were encouraged to buy bonds. Older folk were heard to mutter about post-war-credits. Philip Ridd, Solicitor of Inland Revenue, gave us an account of the UK’s Excess Profits Tax from the same World War II period.

David Duff from Toronto talked about the decline and fall of wealth transfer taxation in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, seeking to explain government actions in terms of public choice theory. Finally, Malcolm Gammie talked about the influence and continuing relevance of ‘source’ in UK taxation.

Our thanks to go to all participants; the papers were fascinating and the discussions incisive. Publication plans for the papers will be announced in due course.