As tax law and cases become increasingly complex, it is crucial for judgments to be comprehensible and accessible. Michael Conlon QC considers what makes a good tax judgment - and he explains why, in most tax cases, brevity is but a pious hope.
Over the course of my career I must have read thousands of court and tribunal judgments. I am sometimes asked: ‘What makes a good tax judgment?’ It is tempting to recall a bail hearing before Croom-Johnson J. So irked was the learned judge at my opponent mis-pronouncing Latin (Latin was allowed in those days) he began his extempore judgment with the words: ‘My judgment will be short – like the “i” in sub judice.’ In Hamlet too Polonius says: ‘Brevity is the soul of wit and tediousness its limbs and outward flourishes.’
Shakespeare intended irony here but these lines have become...
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As tax law and cases become increasingly complex, it is crucial for judgments to be comprehensible and accessible. Michael Conlon QC considers what makes a good tax judgment - and he explains why, in most tax cases, brevity is but a pious hope.
Over the course of my career I must have read thousands of court and tribunal judgments. I am sometimes asked: ‘What makes a good tax judgment?’ It is tempting to recall a bail hearing before Croom-Johnson J. So irked was the learned judge at my opponent mis-pronouncing Latin (Latin was allowed in those days) he began his extempore judgment with the words: ‘My judgment will be short – like the “i” in sub judice.’ In Hamlet too Polonius says: ‘Brevity is the soul of wit and tediousness its limbs and outward flourishes.’
Shakespeare intended irony here but these lines have become...
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If you do not subscribe but are a registered user, please enter your details in the following boxes:
