A new tax blog based out of York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School promises to be an inspiring, provocative and thoughtful forum for conversations on topical fiscal and tax issues in Canada and around the world.
The “Tax at Osgoode Hall Law School” blog will feature regular contributions – such as commentary on, or reaction to, a case, decision, news story or legal development with respect to tax law – from Osgoode faculty members, particularly those in the law school’s robust tax program, academics from other institutions, practitioners of various kinds and others who are established in the field.
In addition, the blog will actively encourage contributions from students, especially those in the LLM Tax program.
J. Scott Wilkie
“This blog is for all students,” said J. Scott Wilkie, Distinguished Professor of Practice at Osgoode, one of the most high-profile tax practitioners in Canada and principal curator of the blog. “Students in the most expansive sense, not just those enrolled in Osgoode’s academic programs but certainly including our own students who think about fiscal and tax matters, often more expansively than others, and who understand the importance of those matters in identifying and enabling constructive responses to any social and economic policy goals.”
Wilkie said the intent is for the blog to be different from other blogs in that its emphasis will be on conversation.
“Not only are all contributions welcome, but they need only be a sentence or a few. It is a conversation, and conversations are not orchestrated or scripted. They simply happen as interested and interesting interlocutors share ideas and experience.”
The blog was first conceived a few years ago by Osgoode tax law professors Jinyan Li, now co-director with Wilkie of the Professional LLM in the tax law program, and Lisa Philipps, now York’s provost and vice-president academic of York.
Jinyan Li
Li credits Wilkie and summer research assistant, JD student Corey LeBlanc, with bringing the “Tax at Osgoode Hall Law School” blog to fruition. “I’m deeply grateful to Professor Wilkie and Corey for giving life to the idea of a tax blog at Osgoode,” Li said. “The timing is particularly significant as we all crave having meaningful conversations about tax and its impact on life during social distancing.”
Wilkie agreed that the present experience of governments around the world and of supranational organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development with respect to COVID-19 “is possibly the clearest, most immediate and most easily understandable indication of how important fiscal and tax policy are, and further, as are the legislative and administrative ways to activate it, with both humanitarian and structural economic and regulatory considerations front of mind.”
The “Tax at Osgoode Hall Law School” blog can be found at https://tax.osgoode.yorku.ca/.