To coincide with the visit of Professor Miranda Stewart to the LSE, the Department of Law is delighted to announce a LSE Taxation Seminar on Monday 17 February 2020 on the topic, 'How can we understand BEPS policy changes in international and domestic tax law? Equilibria, layering and near misses.'
The BEPS project (1.0 and 2.0) is often presented as a disruption of stable international and domestic tax systems, arising at a critical juncture in international tax law after the global financial crisis last decade. But how much of BEPS is really new, at the international and domestic levels? Are any elements of BEPS sufficiently novel and is the change sufficiently large to tip the international tax system into a new equilibrium? Can we distinguish such elements, if any, from BEPS changes that are layered on an existing path of national policy and law development, adding complexity but not destabilising the system? Finally, how might we identify failure of policy change in the BEPS project and what are the consequences of failure? This paper seeks to answer these questions drawing on theories of system and policy change applied to the case of Australia’s engagement in the BEPS project. The goal is to understand better how and why BEPS changes take place nationally and to try to explain the choices governments make as they engage in the BEPS process.
About the speaker
Miranda Stewart is Professor at the Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia where she is Director of the Melbourne Tax Masters program. Miranda is a Fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University in Canberra. Miranda is Chair of the IFA Asia Pacific regional committee and sits on the Permanent Scientific Committee of IFA. Miranda teaches, researches and advises on tax law and policy in academia, government and the private sector. Miranda works on a wide range of tax law topics including international and corporate taxation; tax and development; and tax reform processes and institutions. Miranda has an enduring interest in the legitimacy and fairness of tax systems to support good government. Selected recent publications include ‘Abuse and economic substance in BEPS’ (Bulletin for International Taxation), Sham Transactions (Oxford University Press) and ‘Transnational Tax Information Exchange Networks’ (World Tax Journal).
About the Chair
Dr Ian Roxan is an Associate Professor with the Department of Law.