First Report (2001)

Newsletter : Issue No. 1

As the Centre for Tax Law approaches its first birthday, it seemed an appropriate time to prepare a newletter for its friends and supporters, to detail its activities over the last year. Tax law itself has continued to develop apace, and the significant new caselaw and statutory provision of the last year only serve to confirm the usefulness of a centre devoted to the study of tax law as an academic subject.

Preliminary Meeting for Tax History Project

The Centre's first meeting to gather together those interested in the tax history project took place in the Faculty on 17th November 2000. The day-long meeting attracted enthusiastic support for the project, which aims to bring together researchers from professional, revenue and academic backgrounds, to study, in the first instance, the recent history of tax law as it relates to property. This is an area which has been much neglected of late, and it is hoped that the Centre will act as both a focus and a catalyst to encourage research and discourse in this area. In particular, it is intended that the academic input will be multi-disciplinary, with historians and economists also participating in the programme. Those attending included: Philip Ridd, the solicitor of the Inland Revenue and Dave Hartnett, from the IR Board; Margaret Lamb, from the Warwick Business School; Michael Womack, solicitor, from Taylor Vinters; Maurice Parry-Wingfield, accountant, from Deloitte Touche and Natalie Lee, from Southampton University. The Cambridge contingent, headed by John Tiley, was also there in full force, with David Oliver, Braedon Clark, Cian Carroll, Louise Tee and Phillip Greenwood. The group had a very useful discussion as to the direction that the project should take, and also a presentation by Braedon Clark on the way in which a tax history database could be used to aid research.

Workshop on the Crisis in Academic Tax Law Teaching

A very useful workshop on the crisis in academic tax law teaching took place at the Centre on 16th February 2001 with the generous support of the CIOT. John Tiley chaired the workshop. Several important themes emerged.

Tax History Database

The Centre is planning to establish a tax history database. It is clear that no database yet exists which details historic changes in tax legislation and links to source references in Hansard, government papers, contemporary informed comment and caselaw. The scholarly value of such a database will be immeasurable - it will enable researchers across a wide spectrum of disciplines to chart quickly and easily legislative changes and relevant source material concerning the legislation. After designing a template for such a database, and giving this a dummy run, we approached the Chartered Institute of Taxation for financial help with the cost of developing a prototype. The CIOT very generously agreed to fund this, and a trial database has now been produced and is being tested in connection with the Finance Act 1894, in which Sir William Harcourt introduced Estate Duty, the first consistently progressive tax in the UK.

Peter Harris

We are very pleased to announce that Dr Peter Harris has been appointed to the KPMG Lectureship in Tax Law within the CTL. This post has been made possible because of the financial support of the Newton Trust and the very generous funding provided by KPMG. We should like to express our gratitude to KPMG for such a magnificent gesture on their part, and we are sure that Peter will prove an excellent addition to the Centre and to the Faculty.

History of Tax Law Conference, September 4-5 2002

Arrangements are under way for the Centre's inaugural conference on the history of tax law. The conference will take place on 4-5 September 2002 at Lucy Cavendish College. The main emphasis will be on the 19th and 20th centuries, but there will also be some contributions dealing with earlier periods. We have been delighted by the enthusiastic response to a call for papers, and a wide-ranging programme is being drawn up, with distinguished contributors from Australia, the USA and Hong Kong as well as the UK. If you would like to participate or be placed on the mailing list, please contact Louise Tee at the following email address ctl@law.cam.ac.uk

Links with the Revenue

One of the most promising and potentially rewarding aspects of the Centre is the close relationship which it has already developia, Times New Romaed with the Inland Revenue. Dave Hartnett, who sits on the Inland Revenue Board as Director General, policy and technical, has proved very supportive and is keen to encourage links between academic lawyers and the Revenue. Louise Tee has already visited the Capital Taxes Office in Nottingham where she was able to explore the archived records. Similarly, Sir Nicholas Montague, the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, is warmly behind the aims of the Centre. In return, the Centre intends to make its database available to the Revenue, and will organise workshops and seminars which it hopes will be of interest to, among others, the Revenue.

Seminar on Working Families Tax Credit

With the very generous support of KPMG, the Centre is organising a seminar on the Working Families Tax Credit.

Easter Seminar

On 17 May 2001 the CTL organised a seminar at which Professor Martin Daunton spoke about the politics of UK taxation during the 19th and 20th centuries. His insight that taxation was deliberately and successfully divorced from political debate by Gladstone and others generated a stimulating discussion. Professor Daunton's book, Trusting Leviathon, the Politics of Taxation in Britain 1799-1914, is to be published by Cambridge University Press in November, and a sequel, dealing with the 20th century, is to be published next year. Professor Daunton will be one of the contributors to next year's history of tax law conference.

The All-Tax LL.M.

We are planning an all tax LL.M. which we hope that this will start in October 2002. This is an exciting venture, and we are particularly pleased that KPMG has announced that it will sponsor students taking the tax option. The exact format of the new course is now being discussed; we are keen to ensure that the students can benefit from a variety of teaching and learning styles, with seminars and group work supplementing traditional lectures.

Publications

The long awaited fourth edition edition of Tiley, Revenue Law has now been published and received a warm welcome from academics, students and indeed the Revenue. Other books or contributions to books published this year include Tee, "Division of Property upon Relationship Breakdown" in Herring (ed), Family Law :Issues, Debates, Policy and Tee (ed) Land Law: Issues, Debates, Policy.