Tax Complexity and Symbolic Power

Lynne Oats

Musings on tax research

• • A blessing: new insights, creativity • • • A curse fragmentation potential for misunderstanding Eg Tax complexity?

Two types of tax researchers?

• • • Find tax interesting from within a particular discipline Come from a tax practitioner background Disciplinary assumptions….

“One’s practice results from relations between one’s dispositions ( habitus ) and one’s position in a field ( capital ), within the current state of play of that social arena ( field )…we cannot understand the practices of actors in terms of their habituses alone – habitus represents but one part of the equation; the nature of the fields they are active within is crucial”

http://www.gastronomica.org/bourdieus-food-space/

Field DOXA

Tax complexity and symbolic power • • • • • How we understand complexity is party a result of our own habitus Symbolic power attaches to the ability to make arbitrary distinctions appear as imperatives.

It is in our best interests to ‘cut red tape’ Tax expenditures should be eliminated But…..