Description

The seminar will highlight jurisdictional approaches to the taxation of complex international transactions. It will examine, in particular the use and interpretation of the General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) to address tax avoidance arrangements that have been created to erode tax base or abuse statutory reliefs. The discussion topics are :

• Emerging Issues in International Taxation with Particular Reference to GAAR
• Drafting and Applying GAARs: Detail or Generality? The Contrasting Policy and Experience of Australia and New Zealand
• Comptroller of Income Tax v AQQ (2014): Is there a winner?
• Unjust enrichment and overpaid taxes : a hybrid public and private approach

The speakers will offer critical assessments of statutory and judicial developments in India, New Zealand and Singapore. The rationale behind GAAR as an instrument—apart from Specific Anti-Avoidance Rules (SAAR)—will be explained, while its misuse, or overuse as a revenue generator, will be cautioned against. In 2012, India introduced GAAR in its Finance Act but did not pass it; instead, it appointed a Committee to review it. In 2014, the Singapore GAAR received its first judicial exposition in 25 years. When policy-makers draft general anti-avoidance rules they veer between detail and generality. The New Zealand rule is short, inclusive, and open ended. In contrast, despite sharing the same objectives, the Australian GAAR is lengthy, detailed, and prescriptive. What are the respective merits and demerits of the two approaches?

About The Speakers

Parthasarathi Shome, Adviser (Minister of State) to the Indian Finance Minister (2013-14), is the Chairman for Tax Administration Reforms Commission (TARC)(August 2013), and Expert Committee on General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR)(July-October 2012). He was Chief Economist, HMRC, United Kingdom (2008-11), Adviser (Secretary) to the Indian Finance Minister (2004-08). Dr Shome received highest civilian honour of Brazilian Government, Commander of the Order of the Southern Cross, 2000, for contributions to Brazilian tax reform. He served at IMF (1983-2004) as Chief of Tax Policy (1992-95), Director, IMF Singapore Institute (2001-03). He provided technical assistance to countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. He taught at the American University, Washington D.C. from 1975-1983, rising to the rank of Professor. He obtained his Ph.D from Southern Methodist University, Dallas in 1975, Masters degrees from University of Rochester in 1973 and Delhi School of Economics in 1972.

John Prebble BA, LLB (Hons) (Auckland); BCL (Oxon); JSD (Cornell); Inner Temple (London), LEANZF, is a professor and former dean of law at Victoria University, Wellington, Gastprofessor at the Institut für Österreichisches und Internationales Steuerrecht, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien. Prof Prebble was Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Monash University, Melbourne, a trustee of the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation, Amsterdam, and a member of the editorial boards of several scholarly journals. He has published over 200 scholarly papers and books on taxation law and policy, specialising in analysing concepts of tax law from perspectives of jurisprudence.

Stephen Phua, LLB (NUS), LLM (Tax) (Lond), is an associate professor who teaches Income Tax, GST and International Tax in the Faculty of Law, NUS where he is the Director (Tax), Centre for Law and Business and the Director, LLM (International Business Law) program. He is also an Eastern Scholar, Shanghai, PRC (since 2011) and the International Director, Centre for International Tax Law, Shanghai. He was a tax consultant with IRAS and a leading law firm in Singapore. He served as a member for more than a decade on each one of the three tax courts in Singapore. He was a visiting scholar/professor at several leading universities in Australia, Canada, China, Japan and the USA. He has delivered papers in many international conferences and published articles in refereed journals and chapters in books.

Rebecca Williams, Director of Undergraduate Studies, holds an Associate Professorship in Law, in association with Pembroke College. Rebecca was previously a fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, having done her PhD at Birmingham. Before that she was both an undergraduate and a BCL student at Worcester College, Oxford. Rebecca’s principal teaching interests are criminal law and public law. Her works have been widely cited in the European Court of Justice, the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales, and the High Court of Australia. Besides the interrelationship between public law and unjust enrichment, her current research interests include Criminal Law (including EU criminal law) and Public Law (including EU public law and comparative approaches).