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The Office of Tax Simplification: An Evaluation from 'Down Under'

Organisation Studies

Speaker:Professor Adrian Sawyer, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Date: Tuesday 10 September 2013
Time: 4.00 pm
Location: Bateman Lecture Theatre, Building One, Streatham Campus

Further details

The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), established in July 2010, has over three years ‘under its belt’.  Thus it is opportune to review its contributions and the extent to which it is achieving its brief, prior to its scheduled ‘retirement’ at the 2015 UK Parliamentary elections. In a study published in the British Tax Review in 2013, I compared the early work of the OTS to that of the Tax Working Group (TWG) in New Zealand (NZ) within the framework of NZ’s well-established Generic Tax Policy Process (GTPP).  In that study an early contribution of the OTS to tax policy awareness within the UK was its Complexity Index. Concurrently the OTS is actively involved in a number of important tax policy projects. The paper builds upon this 2013 paper, along with the contributions of other researchers, to offer an outsider’s perspective from ‘down under’, of the contribution of the OTS to UK tax policy. 

Adrian Sawyer is Professor of Taxation and a former Acting Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean of Commerce at the University of Canterbury. Adrian holds an SJD from the University of Virginia, and MCom(Hons), BCom and LLB degrees from the University of Canterbury.  He is a Chartered Accountant and Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.  He has an extensive publication record, with articles appearing in scholarly and professional journals and chapters in books published in Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America.  He is on numerous editorial boards and is Chair of the Editors of the New Zealand Journal of Taxation Law and Policy.  His research interests include tax administration and compliance, international taxation (including international organisations), e-commerce taxation, environmental taxation, goods and services tax (GST), tax history, taxpayers’ rights, and tax rulings, as well as individual insolvency. Adrian was a visiting professor previously in the Exeter Business School during September 2012.