The identification, elaboration, and legislative implementation of the principles of customs law; national regional and global experience
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Date
2020
Authors
Walsh, Thomas
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Publisher
University College Cork
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Abstract
The author based the objectives for this research against the background of the findings of the
Commission on Taxation in relation to Irish customs law:
Notwithstanding the findings of the Irish Commission on Taxation [to the effect that they
found Customs law and administration to be “impenetrable” owing to its antiquity], the
author takes the contrary view that Customs law, generally, has a perceptible pattern which
can be traced and explained in a simple and straightforward manner in order to yield up its
raison d’être. His particular premise is that identifiable and immutable principles of
taxation and administration are at the heart of Customs procedures and practices; that these
principles of taxation and Customs control determine the broad framework of Customs
legislation generally; and that this has been the position from time immemorial, right up to
the present day. To validate this premise he has identified and distilled these formulating
principles as they evolved over the centuries in Irish (and English) law. Having done so he
went on to house them within the framework of Adam Smith’s so-called canons of taxation
in order to make them more meaningful in the overall scheme of taxation – it is worth
noting that Smith was once a Commissioner of Customs in Scotland. At the same time the
author demonstrated that these principles are enshrined in EU customs law and have played
an equally influential role in the formulation of the original, overarching, Kyoto
Convention on the Simplification and Harmonisation of Customs Procedures and its
successor, the revised Kyoto Convention. The then Customs Co-operation Council (now
the World Customs Organisation) appears to have independently reached the same broad
conclusion in the course of its Comparative Studies of Customs Procedures in 1957.
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Keywords
Customs law , Commission on Taxation , Customs legislation , Customs procedures and practices
Citation
Walsh, T. 2020. The identification, elaboration, and legislative implementation of the principles of customs law; national regional and global experience. PhD Thesis, University College Cork.