Comparative Tax Avoidance (LAWS70410)

All taxing jurisdictions face the perennial challenge of how to define the boundaries of permissible tax planning and how to address and deter impermissible tax avoidance. Different jurisdictions historically and today have taken different approaches to this challenge, ranging from judicial doctrines of abuse of law or substance over form, to general and specific anti-avoidance rules enacted in the tax statute. This subject examines Australia’s general anti-avoidance rule in comparison with the approach to tax avoidance taken in other jurisdictions. The subject examines recent trends towards legislative general anti-avoidance rules. The focus is, in particular, on developments in the common law world, including the United Kingdom (where a general anti-avoidance statutory rule is proposed to be legislated), the United States, New Zealand and Canada. Attention may also be paid to anti-avoidance approaches in European and other contexts.

Principal topics include:

• Concepts of tax avoidance in Australia and comparative common law contexts, including the United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand and Canada, as well as European and other legal contexts
• The role of judicial doctrines and responses to tax avoidance in the common law and other judicial traditions
• General statutory anti-avoidance provisions in comparative legal contexts
• Obligations of taxpayers and advisers in relation to tax avoidance in a global and comparative context.