Publications

To download a publication click on the PDF button to the side of the relevant publication.
You might need the free Acrobat Reader to read these documents. If you do not have it, you can download it by clicking the button to the right.

UNITED KINGDOM: PRE-BUDGET REPORT 2007
John Chown and colleagues

ELIMINATING TAX OBSTACLES FOR CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS. (RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPEAN COMPANY LAW)
John Chown. Talk given to the European Law Academy in Trier, Germany, in February 2007

This was based on many years’ experience of company tax reform and harmonisation in the EU and elsewhere with particular reference to what was known as the `surplus ACT’ problem. It discusses the often misconceived tax initiatives taken within the European Union over the years and shows how successive attempts to patch up short-term problems have created others involving such apparently unconnected issues as pensions policy, corporate governance and the growth of private equity.          (LINK)

TRANSITIONAL AND EMERGING COUNTRIES:
The Road to Prosperity, Capital Markets and Tax Policy
John Chown, March 2007

This paper has been substantially rewritten and discusses how we can help transitional and emerging countries on the road to prosperity by creating healthy capital markets, promoting savings and encouraging both domestic and foreign investment. It is based on our experience (described under `public policy’, and includes some new thoughts (based on a recent book by William Easterly) about how the aid agencies can improve their procedures. We are now undertaking further research on the experience showing how and why countries have succeeded in the past, and on the  specific role of Stock Exchanges .

GORDON BROWN’S 1997 ASSAULT ON PENSION FUNDS:
A Case Study in the Law of Unintended Consequences
John Chown

We were amongst the first to draw attention to the long-term significance of Gordon Brown’s 1997 raid on pensions. This, having now come back on the political agenda, we have up-dated this note which demolishes some of the excuses made at the time. An appendix summarises some other work we have done on pensions but not recently up-dated, including the likely differential effect of the pensions time bomb and the future of the European Union and excerpts from evidence we gave to the Turner Commission. This includes comments on Civil Service pensions, on who should bear the longevity risk, and whether, as a possible solution, the Government should directly or indirectly sell life annuities.

An overview of what emerging and transitional markets need to do to develop their capital markets. It was based on experience in Russia and elsewhere, and directed specifically at Central Bankers. Following publication, John Chown was invited to speak to a seminar of them.

Covers a range of monetary regimes as the title would suggest, and shows how some past monetary Unions eventually collapsed. Apart from earlier historic examples, and of course the sequence of events from the birth and death of Bretton Woods to EMU itself, it contains original material on the monetary aspects of the break-up of the Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia. It is a sequel to the earlier "A History of Money." (Routledge, 1994, paperback 1996, Chinese translation 2002)

A comparison of three, possibly unexpected crises, each of which was based on (different) technical economic misunderstandings.

This widely quoted statement by Oxfam is well-meaning but seriously faulted as a policy prescription.

Review of “Banking on Death or Investing in Life: The History and Future of Pensions”, 550 pp. Verso £20. in: Times Literary Supplement, August 23, 2002, p. 24.

Euroinvest, October 14-16, Autumn 2002, pp.54-55. Euromoney Publications.

"International Studies in Taxation: Law and Economics", "Liber Amicorum Leif Muten ", Series on International Taxation, Editors: Gustaf Lindencrona, Sven-Olof Lodin and Bertil Wiman, 1999, pp 77-90, Kluwer Law International Ltd. Also published (updated) in INTERTAX International Tax Review, Vol. 28. No 3, March 2000.

FT World Tax Report, Vol. XXVI January 1998, pp 3-5.

Financial Times Financial Publishing, Pearson Professional Limited, 1997. (This supercedes Tax Efficient Foreign Exchange Management, John Chown, Woodhead Faulkner, 1990.

John Chown, Routledge, London and New York, 1994, paperback 1996. A Chinese translation was published in 2002

John Dewhurst and Martin Palmer have authored a book “UK International Holding Companies: A Special Bulletin” For ordering details check the Jordans website www.jordanpublishing.co.uk