Objectives
Tax law is subject to more efforts to improve it, to more commissions of inquiry, and to more legislative change than any other law. Yet it increasingly becomes more complex. Why is this? The course attempts to answer this and similar questions by approaching tax law as a subject of jurisprudential study, combining close analysis of reasoning in tax judgments with readings in legal philosophy. Candidates who successfully complete the course gain a deep understanding of the nature of tax law and of the way in which tax law differs from other law at the same time as gaining an introduction to jurisprudence.
Syllabus
- Selected income tax judgments, mainly dealing with the capital/revenue distinction and tax avoidance.
- Theories as to why tax law is relatively incomprehensible compared with other law, including:
- The incoherence of tax law.
- Ectopia of tax law (“Ectopia” refers to the dislocation between tax law and the economic gains that are its target.)
- Tax law as an autopoietic system (That is, a closed, self-generating system that is not necessarily closely connected to economic gains.)
- Studies of tax law in the light of basic jurisprudential concepts such as the rule of law, ethics, reasoning by analogy, and form and substance.
