Veron kiertäminen tutkimuskohteena – tutkimuksen näkökulmia, menetelmiä ja suuntauksia koskeva oikeusvertaileva tarkastelu
Avainsanat:
vero-oikeus, tuloverotus, veron kiertäminen, oikeusvertailu, tutkimusmenetelmätAbstrakti
Tax avoidance as a research topic – Approaches, methods, and research lines in a comparative perspective
Tax avoidance has been at the heart of tax law research for decades. It has been studied primarily using jurisprudential, legal-dogmatic and tax policy approaches, often also with a comparative perspective. This article contains a comparative review of the approaches and research methods pertaining to the topic and of the research lines that have emerged in the comparison countries. In addition to Finland, the comparison countries are Germany and Sweden.
Although tax avoidance has many features in common in the various countries, the official attitudes to the phenomenon have varied, as shown, for example, by the way in which and at what historical stage tax avoidance has been addressed by the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR). The means of tackling tax avoidance have also varied depending on the national traditions of legislative technique and latitude of legal interpretation. And in contrast, the research of the phenomenon of tax avoidance has similarly affected the country-specific characteristics, both in terms of the enactment of laws and their interpretation.
Tax avoidance as a research topic is linked to the phenomena of its time. Research on the subject began and progressed, naturally, at the level of national tax systems. One of the related key issues has been the relationship between private law and tax law, i.e., how and to what extent the interpretation of tax law is linked to civil law concepts and phenomena. There is a difference between countries here, and there is a difference in the research findings or views of researchers in each of the countries examined.
With economic development and change, EU law and international tax law norms have entered the traditional field of play, which has changed and will continue to change the research of tax avoidance in the future. As there are now more and more distinct kinds of anti-avoidance regulation at the national, EU and international levels, one key research the relationship between these norms.
