Description

This lecture explores the history and future of tax jurisdiction in a global digital era. Tax jurisdiction is a function of state capacity, technology and politics. It reflects changing labour and capital relations and only partly depends on territorial boundaries. Tax concepts of residence and source have changed over time as the capability to tax mobile consumption, labour and capital changes. Governments extend or retract tax jurisdiction over income, entities and activities outside their territory. Tax jurisdiction is changed by cooperation between states, which has grown significantly in the last decade, although states continue to compete in some important respects. This lecture considers some examples of the evolution of tax jurisdiction including the recent global deal for taxation of multinational enterprises.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Miranda Stewart is a Professor at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne, where she is Director of Tax Studies and an Honorary Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. Miranda is affiliated with the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute funded by the Australian Treasury, and was its inaugural Director from 2014 to 2017. Miranda researches and teaches on a wide range of tax law and policy topics. Books include Tax, Social Policy and Gender (ed ANU Press, 2017), Sham Transactions (ed OUP, 2014, with E Simpson) and Death and Taxes (2022, 8th ed with M Flynn). Miranda’s latest book Tax and Government in the 21st Century is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2022.