Since the decision of the House of Lords in Woolwich Equitable Building Society v Inland Revenue Commissioners [1993] AC 70, the law governing claims for restitution of overpaid tax has experienced rapid and profound evolution. This has been so not only in England, but also elsewhere in the common law world as well as on the European plane. The essays in this collection consider the new landscape, and explore from various doctrinal and national perspectives the issues that have confronted, and continue to confront, the courts.

The editors:

Steven Elliott is a barrister at One Essex Court. Birke Häcker is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, Munich. Charles Mitchell is a Professor of Law at University College London.

Contents:

SECTION I. INTRODUCTION
1. Introduction
Steven Elliott, Birke Häcker and Charles Mitchell

SECTION II. ENGLISH LAW
2. Overpaid Taxes: A Hybrid Public and Private Approach
Rebecca Williams
3. Mistaken Payments of Tax
Duncan Sheehan
4. Restitution from Public Authorities: Any Room for Duress?
Nelson Enonchong
5. Reasons for Restitution
Charlie Webb
6. Restitutionary Claims by Indirect Taxpayers
Charles Mitchell
7. Property, Proportionality, and the Change of Position Defence
Niamh Cleary
8. Undoing Transactions for Tax Purposes: The Hastings-Bass Principle
Monica Bhandari

SECTION III. EUROPEAN LAW
9. Judicial Techniques in Relation to Remedies for Overpaid Tax
Catherine Barnard and Julian Ghosh QC
10. The Principle of Effectiveness and Restitution of Overpaid Tax
Maximilian Schlote

SECTION IV. COMPARATIVE LAW
11. Absence of Basis: A German Perspective
Anne Sanders
12. ‘Public Law Restitutionary Claims’: The German Perspective
Birke Häcker
13. Overpaid Taxes and Constitutional Redress in Ireland
Niamh Connolly
14. Restitution of Overpaid Tax in Canada
Robert Chambers
15. Restitution of Unlawfully Exacted Tax in Australia: The Woolwich Principle
Simone Degeling

Published:   Hart Publishing, 2013, 366 pages.