Public law and political values in tax law

Abstract

This chapter considers taxation from a constitutional and administrative law perspective. It looks first at the ways in which courts can intervene in tax administration and asks what justifies lawyers in altering outcomes and processes that have been decided by tax authorities. The following section considers the role of tax in establishing and stabilising states and emphasises the point made in Tax Law, State Building and the Constitution that even developed states should not take for granted ready access to public finance. The final section of the chapter looks at the extent to which political values might be relevant not only to the evaluation but also to the interpretation of tax law and finds that this depends heavily on perspective. Throughout the chapter there is an attempt to show how tax law might relate to other disciplines and how this itself might depend on the perspectives that we take on the public law matters discussed.