Problematic premises

ACCORDING TO MR Justice Rowlatt in Cape Brandy Syndicate v CIR 12 TC 358 when one seeks to interpret taxation statute: 'one has to look merely at what is clearly said. There is no room for any intendment. There is no equity about a tax. There is no presumption as to tax. Nothing is to be read in nothing is to be implied. One can only look fairly at the language used'.
Albeit the courts are taking an increasingly purposive approach to construction one of the first things I was taught when I started doing tax work was precisely that 'there is no equity in tax'. The taxation outcome of a person's actions usually has little to do with whether that taxation outcome is fair or not.
Part of me would love that to be nonsense. I have spent much of my life working in...