NEWS | Wednesday, 03 September 2008

Maltese Tax Law Discussed at the University of Cambridge

The early history of Maltese Income Tax in Malta was one of the selected topics for the Fourth Tax Law History Conference organised by the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. The Conference was held on July 7 and July 8, 2008 at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. Dr Robert Attard’s paper entitled The History of Income Tax in Malta, the Early Years (1641- 1949) was the concluding study for the symposium of July 7. Dr Attard’s paper discussed an early form of income tax introduced by Grandmaster Lascaris in 1641 and Dr Arturo Colombo’s quest to enact the Income Tax Act 1948. Speakers at the conference include Prof. John Avery Jones CBE (Special Commissioner of Income Tax and Chairman of VAT and Duties Tribunals, GB) and Professor John Tiley (Chaired Professor of Law at Cambridge University). The Conference was attended by some of the Commonwealth’s leading tax academics.
Dr Attard’s talk at Cambridge was Dr Attard’s third international lecturing engagement this year. In June Robert was one of the panellists at an important EU Tax Conference (on Legal remedies in EU Tax Law), a joint initiative of the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien in co-operation with the II University of Naples and the University of Salerno. Fellow panellists included Pasquale Pistone (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien), Peter Wattel (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Richard Lyal (European Commission), Servaas van Thiel (European Council), Daniel Gutmann (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Cécile Brokelind (University of Lund). The study discussed by Robert at the EU Tax Conference was entitled Revoking the Irrevocable, The need to give taxpayers an effective protection of rights granted by the EC Treaty even in the case of final non-appealable acts.
In March 2008 Robert lectured at the Centre of Commercial Law, Queen Mary, University of London (on Taxation & Human Rights).
As a lawyer in private practice Robert has argued cases at all levels. Robert is the author of hundreds of articles and five books including An Introduction to Income Tax Theory (Agenda Books 2005). He is a member of one of the Editorial Boards of Lexis-Nexis Butterworths. Robert holds the post of Director Tax Services at Ernst & Young and lectures at the University of Malta.