South Square Private Law Seminar: 'Gartside v IRC: More Trivial Than We Imagined (But it Did Kill the Discretionary Trust)'

Speaker: Dr Dominic De Cogan, University of Cambridge

The 1967 case of Gartside v IRC is known as an authority for the simple resolution of a difficult point of Equity law, but a closer inspection of the case reveals much wider considerations of tax avoidance and succession planning. This aspect of the case has been overlooked because of the quick reversal of the outcome by Parliament in 1968. This paper is an early draft of a chapter on the case for the book Landmark Cases in Succession Law and seeks to redress the balance by explaining its statutory context and immediate consequences. Viewed in this light, Gartside v IRC can be seen as the beginning of the process whereby Parliament removed the central tax advantages of discretionary trust and radically reduced their attractiveness for estate planning purposes. The disagreements of the House of Lords are also strongly reminiscent of very recent debates on tax avoidance, purposive interpretation and the relative claims of principle and 'fit'. The approach of Lord Reid and Lord Wilberforce to these questions are rather more convincing than their modern counterparts, at least in the succession context.

This seminar is open to all LLM, MCL and PhD students, Faculty members and Faculty visitors.