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The authority of expertise in professional tax law practice (TAXLAW)

This project will investigate - across countries and institutions - what characterises tax lawyers' expertise, and how they draw boundaries between their own and other forms of expertise.

About the project

Who has power over tax policy?

Tax systems are shaped through professional practice by legal experts in the state apparatus and in the private sector, by those teaching tax law in universities and by those practicing in court.

This project will investigate - across countries and institutions - what characterises their expertise, how they draw boundaries between their own and other forms of expertise, and how the institutional context in which they practice underpin their definitions of legal expertise and authority.

Populist contestation of political, bureaucratic and expert elites has become a salient part of contemporary politics also in western democracies – as demonstrated by the Yellow Vests in France, Brexit, or by Trump’s followers in the US. There is a critique of unjust tax systems and these elites’ power to decide how the citizens’ money is spent.

Yet, do politicians really shape the tax systems? Surely, they are the ones who vote over them. However, legal experts are crucial in the process of shaping tax systems.

In the ministries of finance, they develop the legal texts on which the politicians vote, and when politicians bring them suggestions on new tax measures, the legal experts tell them what can and can’t be done – based on their expertise.

What is a good tax system?

But, wherein lies these legal experts’ authority to define what a good tax system is? And how does one really distinguish between legal expert judgement and political judgement in matters of tax? And do legal experts align with economic experts on tax issues, or do they represent a distinct voice?

Further, most of the limits to redistributive effects of tax systems are legal, with loopholes found with the help of legal experts in private firms counselling their clients. The clients are often multinational firms developing complex corporate structures constructed to contain legal ambiguities. The increasing internationalization of law and consultancy firms is accelerating this process, as well as new forms of professionalization among lawyers.

Objectives

The primary objective of this project is to develop a new theoretical and methodological framework to gain new knowledge on how legal professionals in tax law make claims to expert authority, and thereby fill gaps in sociology of professions, social studies of law and expertise studies.

The secondary objectives are:

to describe the characteristics of legal expertise used in daily professional tax law practice (in policy making in ministries, in counselling on tax planning, in universities and in prosecuting or defense in court), and how it is distinct from adjacent fields of expertise
to understand the way expertise in tax law is related to its institutional context (e.g. the organizations, sectors or countries they take place in and the cultural, normative and regulative elements in these social structures), and
to advance theories on legal expertise’s sources of authority and legitimacy.

Financing

The project is funded by the The Research Council of Norway with a total grant of NOK 12.000.000

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Cooperation

The project is coordinated by the Centre for the Study of Professions at OsloMet

Duration

2021-2025

Vassenden, Anders & Mangset, Marte (2022). Social Encounters and the Worlds Beyond: Putting Situationalism to Work for Qualitative Interviews. Sociological Methods & Research. ISSN 0049-1241. doi: 10.1177/00491241221082609. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
In Goffman's terms, qualitative interviews are social encounters with their own realities. Hence, the ‘situational critique’ holds that interviews cannot produce knowledge about the world beyond these encounters, and that other methods, ethnography in particular, render lived life more accurately. The situational critique cannot be dismissed; yet interviewing remains an indispensable sociological tool. This paper demonstrates the value that situationalism holds for interviewing. We examine seemingly contradictory findings from interview studies of middle-class identity (cultural hierarchies and/or egalitarianism?). We then render these contradictions comprehensible by interpreting data excerpts through ‘methodological situationalism’: Goffman's theories of interaction order, ritual, and frontstage/backstage. In ‘situationalist interviewing,’ we suggest that sociologists be attentive to the ‘imagined audiences’ and ‘imagined communities’. These are key to identifying the situations, interaction orders, and cultural repertoires that lie beyond the interview encounter, but to which it refers. In sum, we argue for greater situational awareness among sociologists who must rely on interviews. We also discuss techniques and measures that can facilitate situational awareness. A promise of situational interviewing is that it helps us make sense of contradictions, ambiguities, and disagreements within and between interviews.

View all works in Cristin

Staven, Helle Dyrendahl & Seabrooke, Leonard (2023). Revolving Doors in the Legal Profession. Not as Profitable as Expected? .
Mangset, Marte & Staven, Helle Dyrendahl (2023). What is academic tax law expertise?
Mangset, Marte (2023). The power of tax law expertise between state and market.
Mangset, Marte (2023). Contextually bound authoritative knowledge. On the relationship between academically oriented and practice-oriented knowledge in policy making.
Vassenden, Anders & Mangset, Marte (2023). Turning critique into promise: How situationalism can aid qualitative training.
Mangset, Marte & Staven, Helle Dyrendahl (2023). A powerful weak field. The autonomy and authority of academic expertise in the field of tax law between the state and the market.
Staven, Helle Dyrendahl & Seabrooke, Leonard (2022). Revolving Doors and Glass Ceilings. Gender Barriers and Career Mobility in the Legal Profession.
Mangset, Marte & Durand, Corentin (2022). Le droit fiscal. Entre savoir de l'Etat et expertise privée.
Staven, Helle Dyrendahl & Mangset, Marte (2022). A powerful weak field? The authority of tax law academics’ expertise in the designing and understanding of the tax system.
Staven, Helle Dyrendahl & Seabrooke, Leonard (2022). Revolving Doors and Glass Ceilings. Gender Barriers and Career Mobility in the Legal Profession .
Staven, Helle Dyrendahl & Mangset, Marte (2022). The valuation of tax law knowledge. Is practical knowledge surpassing academic in the designing and understanding of the Norwegian tax system?
Mangset, Marte & Durand, Corentin (2022). Le droit fiscal. D'un savoir de gouvernement à une expertise contre l'État.
Mangset, Marte & Durand, Corentin (2022). Tax law from State knowledge or knowledge against the State.
Mangset, Marte & Durand, Corentin (2022). Autorité et expertise en droit fiscal. Premières pistes d'analyses.
Mangset, Marte & Durand, Corentin (2022). The authority of expertise in professional tax law practice. Research questions and methodological approach.