Revenue
cases that vary in value from £100 penalties to, literally, billions of pounds.”
Tax barristers litigate and advise in a wide variety of matters and disputes in which tax issues arise. Taxes include those that you will have heard of, such as income tax, capital gains tax, corporation tax, inheritance tax, Stamp Duty Land Tax and VAT, as well as those with which you may be less familiar, such as customs and excise duty, landfill tax and diverted profits tax. Tax issues arise in a variety of contexts including corporate reconstructions, insolvency, estate planning and trust management, land transactions, claims for judicial review and restitution, tribunal appeals, criminal and family proceedings, and references before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Ben Elliott has been a tenant at Pump Court Tax Chambers since he completed pupillage in 2014 and has a broad practice involving every type of tax and proceedings including tribunal appeals, judicial review, professional negligence, restitution, insolvency and even criminal proceedings, and he has appeared before every civil court from the county court and First-tier Tribunal to the Supreme Court. “Before I started, there were a number of misconceptions that I had about life as a tax barrister,” he admits when asked how he decided which specialism to pursue when he was first called to the Bar. “Hopefully I can address these now to help readers understand what tax barristers really do on a day-to-day basis and why we love the work that we do.” Litigation and advocacy The first myth that he wants to dispel is that practising at the tax Bar involves very little time arguing cases in court. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he explains. “Some senior tax barristers certainly have predominantly advisory practices, but this is becoming increasingly rare. For junior tax barristers, the vast majority of our work is litigation – or at least dispute resolution. We litigate both for taxpayers and for HMRC in
One aspect that he particularly likes about the Tax Bar is that he gets a good mix of his own advocacy, as well as working on cases led by senior barristers: “You have the opportunity to learn from the best in the field while simultaneously developing your own skills – and sometimes the cases that you get to do yourself are just as complicated and valuable as others in which you are led.” Variety of legal issues Another misconception about tax law is that it is very narrow. “Of course, all of our cases are associated with tax in some way, but the reality is that tax law requires a barrister to be familiar with every other area of civil law,” explains Ben. “For example, when analysing commercial transactions, issues of contract, partnership, company and insolvency law regularly arise. Meanwhile, property transactions require a detailed knowledge of land law, especially for Stamp Duty Land Tax. Private client cases generally concern trust law issues and international transactions give rise to significant questions of EU law – in fact, VAT, customs and excise duties are EU taxes. Since HMRC is a public body, claims for judicial review are also common; and, of course, if a professional makes a mistake then complicated claims for negligence often follow.” He points out that “the range of legal issues that arise in tax cases is demonstrated by the fact that many of the leading cases in other areas of law are actually tax cases. For example, Pepper v Hart is a leading statutory construction case, Vandervell v IRC is an important trusts case, and Unilever is the key case on legitimate expectation in judicial review – these are all tax cases. Overall, it is the variety of legal issues that arise in a tax practice that I find refreshing – the only constant is that those issues will rarely be straightforward!”
For more chambers that work in this practice area, please use the ‘Pupillage index’.
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