LEGAL RESEARCH PAPER SERIES Paper No 73/2012 November 2012
HMRC’s Management of the U.K. Tax System: The Boundaries of Legitimate Discretion
JUDITH FREEDMAN AND JOHN VELLA
In C Evans, J Fredman & R Krever (eds), The Delicate Balance – Tax, Discretion and the Rule of Law (IBFD 2011)
The full text of this paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network electronic library at: < http://ssrn.com/abstract=2174946>
An index to the working papers in the University of Oxford Legal Research Paper Series is located at:
Tax, Discretion and the Rule of Law
Editors Chris Evans Australian School of Taxation and Business Law, University of New South Wales; International Fellow, Centre for Business Taxation Oxford University Judith Freedman Professor of Taxation Law, Faculty of Law; Director of Legal Research, Centre for Business Taxation Oxford University Richard Krever Taxation Law and Policy Research Institute, Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University; International Fellow, Centre for Business Taxation Oxford University
000-EVANS-FM.indd0-EVANS-FM.indd iiiiii 99/8/2011/8/2011 5:27:425:27:42 PMPM Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2174946 IBFD
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000-EVANS-FM.indd0-EVANS-FM.indd iviv 88/29/2011/29/2011 3:29:313:29:31 PMPM Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2174946 HMRC’s Management of the U.K. Tax System: The Boundaries of Legitimate Discretion
Judith Freedman and John Vella*
1. The revenue authority’s discretion and its limits
Taxation provides a critical point of contact between the individual and the state. It requires a number of delicate balances to be negotiated, ensuring, on the one hand, that