What does a fair tax system look like?

Debates about fairness and tax are hot topics at the moment, with large multinational companies increasingly under pressure to explain their tax arrangements and to pay a ‘fair’ amount of tax. The tax affairs of Government ministers and well-known celebrities have also been in the news and accountants and lawyers have been asked to explain the role they play in devising schemes to avoid tax. But what do we mean by fairness in the context of taxation and what are the desirable attributes of a good tax system? We will consider these questions, having first considered what is a tax, what role do (and should) taxes serve, and what are the main features of the UK tax system. We will see that the study of taxation involves much more than calculations and the application of rules: study tax and you will be a student of a wide range of subjects including law, economics, history, politics and psychology.

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