scholarly journals Legal Pragmatism – A Useful and Adequate Explanatory Model for Danish Adjudication on Tax Avoidance?

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Koerver Schmidt

AbstractThe author explores whether legal pragmatism may function as a useful and adequate explanatory model for the case law on tax avoidance unfolding in the Danish Supreme Court. In doing so, the underlying ideas of philosophical and legal pragmatism are initially re-visited while the general interpretational approach of the Danish judiciary is briefly outlined. Subsequently, the general approach to interpretation of Danish tax law is presented and the prevailing opinions on tax avoidance in the Danish doctrine are touched upon. This provide the necessary foundation for the following legal analysis of the Danish Supreme Courts’ case law on tax avoidance. Based on this analysis, it is concluded that legal pragmatism may actually function as a useful and adequate explanatory model for the Danish Supreme Court's case law on tax avoidance. Awareness of this pragmatic inclination may facilitate a better understanding of the Danish Supreme Court's approach in difficult cases on tax avoidance and enhance the possibilities of predicting the outcome of such cases.

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Taborda ◽  
João Sousa

AbstractTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper focusing on the interpretations issued by different Portuguese courts concerning the application of the accrual principle established in the Corporate Income Tax Code.This paper uses a database of the Portuguese tax courts’ decisions and employs a case law-based research methodology to address the following question: under which circumstances the principle of justice may affect the strict application of the accrual principle? After collecting twenty-four legal decisions related to the application of the accrual principle outlined in tax law, this paper summarises eleven, grouping them according to the different issues under dispute. This analysis also includes the confrontation of the assumptions used by the tax authority and the claims of the taxpayers, identifying and discussing the legal arguments to override the strict application of the accrual principle.The main conclusion is that Portuguese courts may summon the principle of justice in taxation when taxpayers violate the accrual principle, in order to prevent unfair corrections to taxable income performed in tax audits. This paper found that the tax authority typically demands a rigid use of the accrual principle while the taxpayers often argue for a more flexible application. This last perspective has been adopted by the tax courts in certain circumstances, in particular when taxable income transfer was not motivated by tax avoidance.


Author(s):  
Oleksandra Skok ◽  

The statistics of the Prosecutor General's Office on registered criminal offenses in the form of serious crimes for 2020 and 2021 were reviewed. Based on this, the number of serious crimes registered by the National Police of Ukraine during the reporting periods was determined. The provisions of the current Criminal Code of Ukraine, the Criminal-Executive Code of Ukraine, the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court No 7 of October 24, 2003 are analyzed, as well as some scientific positions of domestic scientists Knyzhenko O. O are taken into account. and Berezhnyuk V. M In addition, a review of the case law of the Supreme Court of Cassation on sentencing was studied. A thorough criminal-legal analysis of the sanctions of the articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the part of punishments established for the category of serious crimes was carried out. Based on the analysis, it was determined which main and additional punishments are regulated in the sanctions of the articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine for the investigated category of crimes. The quantitative and qualitative indicator of sanctions for serious crimes has been determined, which include: imprisonment for a definite term; punishments alternative to imprisonment; additional penalties. Legislative and doctrinal provisions on punishments in the form of imprisonment for a definite term, restriction of liberty, fine, correctional labor, arrest are considered. The judicial practice of Ukraine in the part of certain issues related to the execution of a penalty in the form of a fine and the replacement of a penalty in the form of a fine with a penalty in the form of correctional labor is analyzed. It is established that the Criminal Code of Ukraine, in the sanctions of the articles, provides for the application to a person who has committed a serious crime, punishment in the form of imprisonment, restriction of liberty, fine, correctional labor, arrest - as the main punishment. The range of additional punishments is defined, which determine: confiscation of property, deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities and a fine.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-122
Author(s):  
Kaido Künnapas

Abstract Deriving from the internal structure of Article 6 of the EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive, the abuse of tax law is overcome in two stages—elimination and requalification. While the elimination stage (addressing how not to tax) is harmonized by the EU for the purpose of fighting against aggressive tax planning, the requalification stage (addressing how to tax then) remains under the sovereignty of Member States. Applying such a two-level mechanism becomes problematic if there is a mismatch between these two stages so that the harmonized GAAR requires elimination of an arrangement, but the domestic law does not provide an alternative basis for taxation of it. This raises a question of whether Article 6 of the ATAD requires the Member States to impose new taxable objects regardless of the literal interpretation of Article 6(3) which recognizes the full sovereignty of Member States to decide what to tax. By applying interpretation methods used by the CJEU in its case-law—i.e., literal, contextual, teleological and comparative—the author argues that the answer to this question is “no”. This is supported by all the interpretations under the above method, while the dysfunctionality of these two stages could be overcome by treating the economic reality test as an objective test regardless of the notion of “commercial reasons” used in Article 6(2).


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 502-506
Author(s):  
Guy Mulley

When the law is confusing, when the efforts of HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”) seem ineffective and when an impecunious state needs higher tax yields, what better time could there be for the Supreme Court to invoke the populist battle cry “tax avoidance” and to head for the “right” decision? Perhaps, it is respectfully suggested, when the (reasoning) means can justify the (judgmental) ends.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. N-1-N-21
Author(s):  
Francesco Pennesi

Abstract In Gauweiler v. ECB, the German Constitutional Court referred for the first time a case to the European Court of Justice. The BVerfG openly doubted the legality of the OMT program of the European Central Bank, one of the most effective European instruments in counteracting the effects of the Euro-crisis. Despite the apparent willingness of the BVerfG to accept the referring decision of the ECJ, it is clear that the German judges have a different constitutional interpretation of the monetary mandate of the ECB. This article will focus on the different conceptions of European Monetary Union and in particular of the ECB proposed by the two Supreme Courts in their case-law, and will explain why the legality of the ECB’s activity will be re-examined in the near future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 274-293
Author(s):  
Nazarii Stetsyk

The article covers the doctrinal issues of judicial precedent and case law in the legal doctrine, substantiates the need for formalization and official recognition of the actual role of the decisions of the supreme courts in similar cases. Traditional doctrinal delimitation and contrasting case law and judicial practice leads to refuse of taking into account the positive experience of the functioning of case law in common law countries. Taking into account such experience would help to satisfy the demands of the court practice in raising the significance of the decisions of the supreme courts in similar cases. In Ukraine, as in many post-Soviet countries, there is a tendency to refuse explanations of legislation on the basis of summarizing of court practice, and at the same time formalization and official recognition of the bindiness and normativity of decisions of the supreme courts in specific cases. In this regard, the peculiarities of the introducing and development of the case law of the Supreme Court in Ukraine at various stages are analyzed. Also highlighted their positive and negative aspects.


1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-205
Author(s):  
Megan Cleary

In recent years, the law in the area of recovered memories in child sexual abuse cases has developed rapidly. See J.K. Murray, “Repression, Memory & Suggestibility: A Call for Limitations on the Admissibility of Repressed Memory Testimony in Abuse Trials,” University of Colorado Law Review, 66 (1995): 477-522, at 479. Three cases have defined the scope of liability to third parties. The cases, decided within six months of each other, all involved lawsuits by third parties against therapists, based on treatment in which the patients recovered memories of sexual abuse. The New Hampshire Supreme Court, in Hungerford v. Jones, 722 A.2d 478 (N.H. 1998), allowed such a claim to survive, while the supreme courts in Iowa, in J.A.H. v. Wadle & Associates, 589 N.W.2d 256 (Iowa 1999), and California, in Eear v. Sills, 82 Cal. Rptr. 281 (1991), rejected lawsuits brought by nonpatients for professional liability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 66-79
Author(s):  
S. L. Morozov ◽  

The advent of the electronic currency and the effecting of electronic payments has caused new forms of thefts and types of acquisitive crimes. The judicial investigative practice of criminal cases of embezzlement committed using bank cards and other types of electronic payments has encountered problems with the qualification of such acts. The author identifies the most common enforcement problemsand their causesby a retrospective study of judicial practice, the changing norms of the criminal law. At the same time, a ten-year period of work of the judicial investigating authorities was studied. On the basis of traditional general scientific methods of cognition, as a result of a system-legal analysis of the considered set of specific situations, the author gives an author's view of the complex of causes that cause a lack of uniformity in judicial investigative practice. Using the hermeneutic approach, the author paid special attention to the application by the courts of the interpretation of the criminal law by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in different years. In conclusion, ways of resolving contentious issues of qualification of thefts and fraud in the field of electronic means of payment are proposed. It has been ascertained that high-quality and uniform law enforcement can provide additional clarification on the delimitation of related and competing theft from the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. It is concluded that in general, the current concept of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation does not contain contradictions with the novels of the criminal law, but can be improved. The rationale and edition of possible additions to the relevant decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation are given.


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