New Publication on Taxation

Professional Misconduct in International Taxation
By PhD Fellow Rasmus Corlin Christensen and Professor Leonard Seabrooke, Department of Organization (IOA), Copenhagen Business School (CBS)

Abstract
This paper explores the space for professional misconduct in international taxation through the exploitation  of  unique  expertise  and  legal  distinctions.  In  a  complex  international  tax environment, where multiple logics from overlapping social and legal systems meet, there is unique scope for misconduct by professional experts as adjudged by social control agents, such as  the  state,  professional  bodies  or  popular  media.  These are  not  trivial  judgments.  The implications  of  perceived  misconduct  are  potentially  significant –fostering  new  regulations and enforcement actions, changing social norms, and damaging trust in the profession. Given this, there is a need to systematise our understanding of misconduct in international taxation, including  its  evaluation  and  social  settings.  We  emphasise  the  particular ambiguities  that characterise international taxation and discuss how tax professionals may strategically and, as a matter of everyday practice, come to be perceived as engaging in misconduct. We argue that it is helpful to understand misconduct through the analysis of key professional boundaries and we provide case vignettes of important contemporary judgments of professional misconduct in international tax systems.