Dear Friends,

It is my great pleasure to announce that registration is now open for the 7^th International Conference on Taxpayer Rights.  Yay!

This year, the conference is being hosted by Harvard Law School.  However, we will be holding it online for one more year,  just to be safe and to minimize logistical burden. 

The theme of the conference is Tax Collection and Taxpayer Rights in the Post-COVID World.  It will be held from May 18 to 20, 2022, with a free online workshop on May 16 on The Role of Tax Clinics and Tax Ombuds/Advocates in Protecting Taxpayer Rights in Collection Matters.

You can register for the Conference and see the agenda here.  We have kept registration fees as low as we can, including a differential structure for attendees from OECD and non-OECD countries, and discounts for JD/LLM/PhD students.

We decided to focus on tax collection this year, as a follow on the 5th ICTR, which concentrated on tax audits.  The laws governing the collection of tax and the collection practices of tax agencies are an understudied area of tax scholarship, and yet for many taxpayers, the actual collection of tax is where taxation becomes tangible.  While an audit may result in a tax liability, it is still theoretical until the tax bill actually arrives and payment is expected (or extracted).  And while tax policy attempts to take into account taxpayers’ ability to pay in the form of living allowances and household or child exemptions or credits, individual financial circumstances are often not addressed by either policy or administrative procedures.  Requirements such as pay first, resolve later can seriously impair taxpayers’ access to administrative and judicial review of agency determinations. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront the challenge of balancing the state’s collective need for tax revenue to provide for its citizens with the need to recognize the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that might affect an individual’s ability to contribute to that collective need. 

As you will see from the agenda, we have an impressive and diverse roster of panelists who will address the following issues, among others:

• A taxpayer rights/human rights framework for tax collection practices;
• Collection alternatives: three case studies;
• State, local, and international collection of tax;
• Business hardship;
• Efficiency, digitalization, and taxpayer rights in the collection of tax; and
• Intermediaries and tax collection.

So!  We are looking forward to “seeing” you at the online  Harvard Law conference in May!

All the best,

Nina

Nina E. Olson
Executive Director