February 2018

”The Tax Profession in the Spotlight” Symposium

On Monday 26 February 2018, the Journal of Tax Administration held a symposium at Broadway House, Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NQ. The topic under discussion was “The Tax Administration in the Spotlight”. The symposium was chaired by Lynne Oats (JOTA and the University of Exeter) and Penelope Tuck (University of Birmingham). More than 30 delegates were in attendance.

The Aim of the Symposium

In the wake of recent high-profile global events, tax professionals’ work has come under unprecedented scrutiny. Therefore, we aimed to draw on international experience in order to attempt to answer the following (and other) questions about tax professionals:

  • What work do they do for, and on behalf of, their clients?
  • What role do and should they play in the tax ecosystem?

The Speakers

We are grateful to all the experts who took the time to speak at our event. Steve Edge (Slaughter and May) introduced the event by posing the question “What Does a Competitive Corporate Tax System Mean in Practice?”

Michelle Lyon Drumbl (Washington & Lee University School of Law) then spoke about “Tax Attorneys as Defenders of Taxpayer Rights in the United States”. This was followed by a presentation by David Quentin (Queen Mary University London) on “The Guys who Prostitute Themselves: Tax Abuse and Professional Role-Switching Among Senior Members of the Tax Bar “.

Rasmus Corlin Christensen (Copenhagen Business School) then spoke on the subject of “The Mutual Constitution of Professionalisation and Global Governance: The Case of Transfer Pricing”. The morning’s session was rounded off by Rodrigo Ormeño Pérez (University of Chile) who discussed “Tax Professionals in the Law-Making Process”.  

Jane Frecknall-Hughes (University of Nottingham) opened the afternoon’s proceedings with a presentation titled “Striving for Acceptability: The Case of the Tax Profession”.  Hans Gribnau (Tilburg University) then spoke about “Ethics for Tax Professionals”.

The subject of the next presentation, by David Southern QC (Temple Tax), was “Assessment by Information Technology and by Legislation: A Fundamental Issue for the Rule of Law”.  Till-Arne Hahn (Queen's University, Canada) then discussed “The Practice of Tax in Canada as a De Facto Profession: The Coalescence of a Profession as Evidenced by Collective Identity”. 

The final presentation of the symposium, “Ethical Reasoning in Tax Practice – A Matter of Law?”, was made by Elaine Doyle (University of Limerick) on behalf of her co-authors, Barbara Summers and Jane Frecknall-Hughes.

The Impact of the Symposium

The symposium was covered by Andrew Goodall, who wrote about it for Worldwide Tax Daily at Tax Analysts.

Two of the papers presented at the symposium were later developed for inclusion in the Journal of Tax Administration:

In addition, Till-Arne Hahn (Queen's University, Canada) and Rodrigo Ormeño Pérez (University of Chile) wrote a review paper titled “Tax Professionals in the Academic Spotlight: A Review of Recent Literature” in response to the event. 

All three of these papers were published in Vol 6(1) of JOTA, which is available to download, free of charge, from our website.