Meet OBADINA DEREK ADETOKUNBO, an Academic Staff of Lagos State University.
Corporate And International Tax Law
Professor
Law
At the Law department office
Appointment on Visitation important
Topic: Interaction Between Company Law, Companies, Taxation And Development. Orcid 0000-0002-7352-3588
Description:
The broad focus of my research has been on the legal and good governance responsibilities of companies in relation to taxation as a mechanism for promoting development in Nigeria. A major aspect of this has been corporate tax planning and transfer pricing.
Tax Planning (alternatively referred to as tax avoidance or tax mitigation) is conventionally understood as the lawful avoidance of tax liability as distinct from tax evasion (avoidance of tax liability by means that are prohibited by statute). It is a settled practice of companies that has been recognised and encouraged by the courts and the legislature, yet it is ill-defined in law. The contemporary focus on tax-maximisation as a precondition for the achievement of appropriate societal development (latterly defined by the Sustainable Development Goals) has brought into question the propriety of tax avoidance and generated debate as to the appropriate boundaries of the phenomenon. Importantly, governments, revenue authorities, and international standard-setting organisations have identified aggressive tax avoidance as illegitimate.
My research interest here is twofold. First, to examine tax avoidance/tax planning as a challenge of regulatory and social policy: what limits does the law impose on tax planning and what should be boundaries of appropriate tax planning relative to the goal of tax maximisation. The second aspect of my research interest is to examine the 'problem' from the perspective of corporate governance. On the premise that companies should be constrained by the social consequences of their actions and that the State should require or, at least encourage responsible tax planning, I am interested to explore the relationship between tax planning and corporate governance, both as a matter of law and practice.
In relation to Transfer Pricing, I am working to produce a textbook on the Income Tax (Transfer Pricing ) Regulations 2018. The book will examine the Regulations in the context of the OECD transfer pricing framework as well as the UN's Transfer Pricing Manual
| # | Certificate | School | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Ph.D (Law) | University of Wales | 1988 |
Tax Planning in the Corporate Sector
My research interest (as described above) has recently resulted in the publication of two papers authored by me:
Both of these articles are based on the results of desktop research and are analytical.
The first paper examines the contemporary discussion around tax planning (more precisely, the right to avoid tax as judicially recognised) and tax maximisation, clarifies the concept of socially responsible tax planning, and examines the extent to which the tax system supports socially responsible tax planning. My distinctive contribution is to argue that, contrary to settled judicial practice as expressed in the literal rule of interpretation, the courts should have regard to legislative intention/policy in determining the legal propriety of tax planning.
My second article focuses on tax planning and corporate governance. Premising that the State should play a role in encouraging responsible tax planning as an aspect of good corporate governance and focusing on the National Code of Corporate Governance published (published in 2019), my article highlights the opportunities and challenges presented by the corporate governance framework as a mechanism for fostering/facilitating socially responsible tax planning in the corporate sector.
I am in the process of building on this output by undertaking fieldwork to examine whether the concept of good corporate governance (as identified by the National Code on Corporate Governance 2019) does in fact influence the way companies approach tax planning.
OBADINA DEREK is a Professor at the Department of Law
OBADINA has a Ph.D in Law from University of Wales
