Gribnau & Vording on The Birth of Tax Law as an Academic Discipline

Hans Gribnau and Henk Vording recently posted an interesting paper on SSRN. Here is the introduction:

The academic discipline of tax law as we know it today has its roots in the late nineteenth century. In the Netherlands, it emerged out of a confrontation between (predominantly British) classical political economy and German Staatslehre (theory of the state). This contribution analyses the impact of the relevant ideas on Dutch theorizing about taxes. It is argued that tax law as a legal discipline is heavily indebted to the German tradition. This may help to explain why it has proven difficult to develop meaningful communication between tax lawyers and tax economists.  

The paper focuses on the development of tax doctrine in the Netherlands over the nineteenth century, but the paper's thoughtful analysis of the evolution of tax goals and priorities, the conceptualization of the taxpayer-state relationship, the complex interaction on tax policy of political and economic theory, and the impact of rule of law theory on tax policy are of general interest.