Tax law : complexity, politics and policymaking

This essay introduces the various contributions to a special issue of the journal. Its overall theme is the variety of ways in which “tax complexity” performs political functions. The essay establishes the principal meaning of tax complexity as “rule complexity” and places each contribution within the controversies on the subject. Highly abstract and technical tax law is seen as foundational to the neoliberal regulatory state. Tax law has a complexity exacerbated by the incorporation of other regulatory systems, by arguments over linguistic indeterminacy and by a disconnection between wider political debate and those closely involved in developing and drafting tax legislation. An analysis of the relationship between the political ordering of the regulatory state and the phenomenon of tax complexity is followed by a discussion of political debate and the significance of legal formalism. The essay concludes by speculating on the custodianship of definitive interpretation in the tax law context