What was the impetus behind the recent formation of Field Court Tax Chambers?
The original impetus was that a majority of members of Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers wanted to move to the City, while the four of us – myself, Patrick Way QC, Philip Baker QC and Imran Afzal – wanted to remain in the Inns. In doing this, the impetus changed and we became excited about setting up our own set of chambers in our own image and implementing our new ideas.
Aside from your immediate colleagues, whom in tax do you most admire?
Aside from my immediate colleagues, whom I hold in the highest regard, I admire Zig Wilamowski of Hamels Consultants LLP, who is a highly effective tax accountant in finding, tenaciously, the optimum solutions to his clients’ requirements.
What advice would you give to someone entering the profession?
Find your ‘quiet spot’ as soon as possible where you can regroup and get things in perspective – it may be a garden, an inspirational book, a park bench, a church etc. If you take time to think things through and get to the bottom line, very few things are worth worrying about.
Never ‘kill time.’ It is a precious gem which never comes around again. The Zen masters used to hit their students over the head with a stick if they ever said they were bored!
What recent tax cases have caught your eye and why?
The two cases of Mayes and Astall & Edwards, where the Court of Appeal came to different decisions on the same tax avoidance scheme. This reminds me of the Scandinavian realist school of jurisprudence (also called the ‘digestive school’), which holds that a decision depends on what the judge had for breakfast.
Also, the Hong Kong case of Arrowtown, where the court was able to encapsulate into one pithy sentence the Ramsay approach to statutory interpretation, which it took the English courts 30 years to develop.
What stood out for you in this year’s Finance Act?
The further powers given to HMRC to stop tax avoidance. The powers of HMRC are considerable at the moment and there is great scope for abuse. The courts may need to keep this in check. The only real restraint on HMRC at the moment is the four freedoms under EU law.
Professor Wheatcroft used to say that ‘a tax system breathes through its loopholes’. There are no loopholes any more, though – only what HMRC, parliament and the EU allow. And the system does seem to be breathing through those authorised loopholes – low rates of corporation tax and capital gains tax, patent box relief, CGT reliefs and exemptions, potentially exempt IHT transfers, the EU freedoms, etc.
If you could make one change to UK tax law, what would it be?
I would get rid of the GAAR and seek to put the Ramsay approach to interpretation into a statutory form.
You might not know this about me but...
I like to be surrounded by hundreds of books on any topic you care to mention – philosophy, mythology, poetry, Zen, art, history, Hasidic tales, astronomy, etc. I read no more than a page and then move onto the next topic. In this way, I hope to have read all the books in the world worth reading and die a wise man.
What was the impetus behind the recent formation of Field Court Tax Chambers?
The original impetus was that a majority of members of Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers wanted to move to the City, while the four of us – myself, Patrick Way QC, Philip Baker QC and Imran Afzal – wanted to remain in the Inns. In doing this, the impetus changed and we became excited about setting up our own set of chambers in our own image and implementing our new ideas.
Aside from your immediate colleagues, whom in tax do you most admire?
Aside from my immediate colleagues, whom I hold in the highest regard, I admire Zig Wilamowski of Hamels Consultants LLP, who is a highly effective tax accountant in finding, tenaciously, the optimum solutions to his clients’ requirements.
What advice would you give to someone entering the profession?
Find your ‘quiet spot’ as soon as possible where you can regroup and get things in perspective – it may be a garden, an inspirational book, a park bench, a church etc. If you take time to think things through and get to the bottom line, very few things are worth worrying about.
Never ‘kill time.’ It is a precious gem which never comes around again. The Zen masters used to hit their students over the head with a stick if they ever said they were bored!
What recent tax cases have caught your eye and why?
The two cases of Mayes and Astall & Edwards, where the Court of Appeal came to different decisions on the same tax avoidance scheme. This reminds me of the Scandinavian realist school of jurisprudence (also called the ‘digestive school’), which holds that a decision depends on what the judge had for breakfast.
Also, the Hong Kong case of Arrowtown, where the court was able to encapsulate into one pithy sentence the Ramsay approach to statutory interpretation, which it took the English courts 30 years to develop.
What stood out for you in this year’s Finance Act?
The further powers given to HMRC to stop tax avoidance. The powers of HMRC are considerable at the moment and there is great scope for abuse. The courts may need to keep this in check. The only real restraint on HMRC at the moment is the four freedoms under EU law.
Professor Wheatcroft used to say that ‘a tax system breathes through its loopholes’. There are no loopholes any more, though – only what HMRC, parliament and the EU allow. And the system does seem to be breathing through those authorised loopholes – low rates of corporation tax and capital gains tax, patent box relief, CGT reliefs and exemptions, potentially exempt IHT transfers, the EU freedoms, etc.
If you could make one change to UK tax law, what would it be?
I would get rid of the GAAR and seek to put the Ramsay approach to interpretation into a statutory form.
You might not know this about me but...
I like to be surrounded by hundreds of books on any topic you care to mention – philosophy, mythology, poetry, Zen, art, history, Hasidic tales, astronomy, etc. I read no more than a page and then move onto the next topic. In this way, I hope to have read all the books in the world worth reading and die a wise man.
