One minute with Joseph Howard, head of Chancery Court Tax Chambers.
What’s keeping you busy at work?
It’s been an incredible year. Chancery Court Tax Chambers has just celebrated its first anniversary and next month we are moving to new larger chambers at 12 Gray’s Inn Square. Becoming head of a new tax chambers has been quite a challenge, but it has been an amazing privilege to be able to start building a chambers from the ground up. We have been very busy assisting clients with the huge impact of HMRC’s attack on disguised remuneration arrangements and with the work we do for our high and ultra-high net worth clients, particularly in relation to UK real estate holdings.
Is there a recent tax case that has caught your eye?
I was recently astonished by the decision of the Court of Appeal in R (on the application of Jimenez) v First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) [2019] EWCA Civ 51. This was a case on the territorial limits of HMRC’s ability to serve a taxpayer notice under FA 2008 Sch 36 to request information. The case was heard by the Administrative Court in 2017 and Charles J found that taxpayer notices were a domestic only power and could not be issued to persons outside the UK. The Court of Appeal reversed this decision.
The Sch 36 power now cuts across the existing treaty-based system for requesting information of non-UK persons and, in my view, it will inevitably cause conflict. I am working on one transatlantic enquiry case where this change of law will have a dramatic impact on the existing position.
There is an increasingly widely held view that HMRC’s powers have become too great. We should always be concerned about the constant incremental increase of the powers of the executive, even where the powers are expanded for what at the time seem like good reasons.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
There are few people who don’t agree that retrospective and retroactive laws are very unfair. In the tax field, we are (almost) becoming accustomed to laws being changed with retroactive effect, when it is doubtful if such changes would be politically acceptable in other areas. My view is that the amount of revenue collected by the retroactive nature of the April 2019 loan charge legislation will in the long term prove to be less valuable than the amount of damage done to respect for the rule of law, and for a large group of people’s perceptions of the fairness of HMRC.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
I remember my Cambridge Law tutor Eleanor ‘Leo’ Sharpston QC (now advocate general at the CJEU) describing a ‘regular’ barrister’s 18 hour work day. I wish I had known that she wasn’t kidding!
What advice would you give to someone starting out at the tax bar?
Don’t ever be dissuaded. The work is very hard and the learning curve is incredibly steep but there comes a point when it all starts to make sense. In the early years, don’t rely too much on being fed work by other barristers. Make your own contacts with solicitors and accountants, get yourself into court (with civil and criminal matters) and build up your advocacy ability. Our clients want meticulously thought through conclusions delivered with confidence, clarity and simplicity. If you can give them that, then you will be successful on your own merits.
Finally, you might not know this about me but…
I originally studied archaeology and anthropology. The parallels between the two fields are certainly not lost when researching old cases in the dusty vaults of Lincoln’s Inn Library. Decoding the arcane texts of Finance Acts can be just as challenging as translating hieroglyphs.
One minute with Joseph Howard, head of Chancery Court Tax Chambers.
What’s keeping you busy at work?
It’s been an incredible year. Chancery Court Tax Chambers has just celebrated its first anniversary and next month we are moving to new larger chambers at 12 Gray’s Inn Square. Becoming head of a new tax chambers has been quite a challenge, but it has been an amazing privilege to be able to start building a chambers from the ground up. We have been very busy assisting clients with the huge impact of HMRC’s attack on disguised remuneration arrangements and with the work we do for our high and ultra-high net worth clients, particularly in relation to UK real estate holdings.
Is there a recent tax case that has caught your eye?
I was recently astonished by the decision of the Court of Appeal in R (on the application of Jimenez) v First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) [2019] EWCA Civ 51. This was a case on the territorial limits of HMRC’s ability to serve a taxpayer notice under FA 2008 Sch 36 to request information. The case was heard by the Administrative Court in 2017 and Charles J found that taxpayer notices were a domestic only power and could not be issued to persons outside the UK. The Court of Appeal reversed this decision.
The Sch 36 power now cuts across the existing treaty-based system for requesting information of non-UK persons and, in my view, it will inevitably cause conflict. I am working on one transatlantic enquiry case where this change of law will have a dramatic impact on the existing position.
There is an increasingly widely held view that HMRC’s powers have become too great. We should always be concerned about the constant incremental increase of the powers of the executive, even where the powers are expanded for what at the time seem like good reasons.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
There are few people who don’t agree that retrospective and retroactive laws are very unfair. In the tax field, we are (almost) becoming accustomed to laws being changed with retroactive effect, when it is doubtful if such changes would be politically acceptable in other areas. My view is that the amount of revenue collected by the retroactive nature of the April 2019 loan charge legislation will in the long term prove to be less valuable than the amount of damage done to respect for the rule of law, and for a large group of people’s perceptions of the fairness of HMRC.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
I remember my Cambridge Law tutor Eleanor ‘Leo’ Sharpston QC (now advocate general at the CJEU) describing a ‘regular’ barrister’s 18 hour work day. I wish I had known that she wasn’t kidding!
What advice would you give to someone starting out at the tax bar?
Don’t ever be dissuaded. The work is very hard and the learning curve is incredibly steep but there comes a point when it all starts to make sense. In the early years, don’t rely too much on being fed work by other barristers. Make your own contacts with solicitors and accountants, get yourself into court (with civil and criminal matters) and build up your advocacy ability. Our clients want meticulously thought through conclusions delivered with confidence, clarity and simplicity. If you can give them that, then you will be successful on your own merits.
Finally, you might not know this about me but…
I originally studied archaeology and anthropology. The parallels between the two fields are certainly not lost when researching old cases in the dusty vaults of Lincoln’s Inn Library. Decoding the arcane texts of Finance Acts can be just as challenging as translating hieroglyphs.
