Taxation Law

Taxation pervades every area of life, including property, family, employment and business affairs. Tax law is well suited to interdisciplinary study, intersecting as it does with economics and politics. It also offers rich opportunities for the study of many areas of law, given that tax factors have frequently influenced development of legal concepts and principles. In turn, tax laws are shaped by concepts of property, commercial, corporate and employment law and approaches to drafting and interpretating legislation. This course introduces students to selected issues in the law of taxation, which illuminate fundamental concepts and link to other parts of the undergraduate law course. The focus is on tax law, but the technical issues are examined by focusing on themes and principles and by placing the law within its political and economic context, in order to understand the requirements of a tax system and the difficulties in designing, legislating for and administering such a system. 

Students taking this course will use a variety of sources, ranging from statute and case law to accessible literature from other disciplines, such as economics and political theory, of which no prior knowledge is required. All the material is non-mathematical and no computation is for this course. The approach taken and topics chosen ensure that the course is of interest to a wide range of students. Those entering the legal profession will find that knowledge of taxation is of value whether or not they intend to specialise in taxation. In this field, there are many opportunities, both in the City and in private client work, or as background to practice in other areas. The course will provide a valuable intellectual framework for the tax element in the professional legal training courses. Students interested in careers outside the legal profession will also find that the tax course provides a thorough grounding in a topic of central importance to business, politics and government. 

The course examines the objectives and functions of a "good" tax system and how these affect what society chooses to tax. The focus of the course is on direct taxes - income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax in relation to individuals and businesses and the application of these taxes to private trusts. The issue of tax avoidance is of central concern in most tax systems. The course examines the way in which our tax system has lent itself to ingenious tax avoidance (or tax planning?) schemes and the attempts of the judges and the legislature to combat these activities.