This work contains the full text of the papers presented at the second Tax Law History Conference in July 2004. The Conference was organised by the Cambridge Law Faculty's Centre for Tax Law. The papers range widely in terms of period - from the Old Testament to the twentieth century - and geographical areas, with papers on matters relating to not only the United Kingdom but also Canada, Australia and the US. The matters discussed are also broad and include the concept of taxation developed by Adam Smith and his fellow United Kingdom writers of the Enlightenment, problems of adjudication in tax law and of access to justice for taxpayers, definitions of income and its UK subset 'total income', capital gains tax, stamp duty on newspapers, the wartime excess profits tax, the nature of tithes, the strange tale of Jasper Moore, the real nature of the decision in the Duke of Westminster case, the demise of wealth transfer taxes in Canada, the nature of the US corporate tax and debates in the US about whether to raise war finance by issuing bonds or levying tax. As a whole the papers illustrate not only the wide variety but also the real depth of the issues waiting to be investigated in this rapidly growing field of scholarship.

Part 1 The Income Tax Era
1 The Special Commissioners from Trafalgar to Waterloo John F Avery Jones
2 Access to Justice before the Special Commissioners of Income Tax in the Nineteenth Century Chantal Stebbings
3 The Rise and Development of the Concept of 'Total Income' in United Kingdom Income Tax Law: 1842-1952 John HN Pearce
4 Official Deliberations on Capital Gains Tax: 1955-1960 David Stopforth
5 Excess Profits Tax Litigation Philip Ridd
Part 2 Wider Issues
6 Tax Law and Public Opinion:
Explaining IRC v Duke of Westminster Assaf Likhovski
7 A Book Review of The Saving of Income Tax, Surtax and Death Duties by Jasper More Philip Baker
8 When is a Tax not a Tax but a Tithe? Andrew Lewis
9 The Concept of Taxation and the Age of Enlightenment Jane Frecknall Hughes
10 The Abolition of the Taxes on Knowledge Lynne Oats and Pauline Sadler
Part 3 Commonwealth Essays
11 The Abolition of Wealth Transfer Taxes in Canada David G Duff
12 A Tale of Two Systems: The Divergent Tax Histories of Australia and Canada Rodney Fisher
13 The Ever-Elusive Definition of Income: A Historical Perspective from Australia Margaret McKerchar and Cynthia Coleman
Part 4 The US Dimension
14 Why was the US Corporate Tax Enacted in 1909? Reuven S Avi-Yonah
15 Entity Theory as Myth in the US Corporate Excise Tax of 1909 Steven A Bank
16 Voluntarism and Taxation Carolyn C Jones

“…because the contributors have been given free range, and allowed to delve quite deeply into areas of their own interest, they have been able to come up with all sorts of explanations for things which a speedy overview might not have led most readers to expect.” –  Roger Kerridge, The Journal of Legal History, Vol 28, No 3

“These studies in history of tax laws and policies, their design and development, structure and administration, intended and unintended effects, not only enlightens and informs, sometimes even entertains, but also provides a comparative resource for recurrent issues.” –  Mr Howard Alexander, Queensland Supreme Court History Programme Yearbook