Writing competition

The UK Branch of the International Fiscal Association is pleased to sponsor a writing competition for UK postgraduate students.

The competition is open to all full-time and part-time students studying tax law as part of a postgraduate degree (LLM, MA, MSc, PhD or similar programme) in the United Kingdom during the 2023-2024 academic year.

The paper must be primarily about UK international tax law, including the UK tax treatment of international and cross-border activities, UK tax treaties and/or UK aspects of international tax issues.

The deadline for submissions is 31 October 2024 at 23:59 GMT.

The award is £3,000 cash, plus complementary membership of IFA UK for the 2025 calendar year if the winner is resident in the United Kingdom in 2025.

Further information can be found in the competition rules below.

COMPETITION RULES

Eligibility and Topics

The writing competition of the UK Branch of the International Fiscal Association (IFA UK) is open to all full- and part-time students studying tax law as part of a postgraduate degree (LLM, MA, MSc, PhD or similar programme) in the United Kingdom during the 2023-2024 academic year.

The paper must be primarily about UK international tax law, including the UK tax treatment of international and cross-border activities, UK tax treaties and/or UK aspects of international tax issues.  Each student may submit only one paper.  Co-authored papers will not be accepted.  Published papers and papers accepted for publication, including on online forums, at the time of submission will not be accepted.  Papers submitted as part of the requirements of a degree or to other writing competitions may be submitted to the competition, but they must be accompanied by a note indicating all such submissions.

In all cases, the paper submitted must be the original work of the student and must be fully referenced, with citations in OSCOLA format.  IFA UK reserves the right to submit papers to Turnitin or a similar text-matching service.

Format

Papers must be no more than 12,000 words in length, including footnotes and any appendices (but not including bibliographies or tables of cases and legislation).  They must be submitted as Word files and should be double-spaced in an easily readable 12-point font, with footnotes in 10-point font.

Paper Submission

Papers must be submitted as an attachment to an email sent from the student’s UK academic email account to admin@ifa-uk.org by the deadline.  The covering email must include the following information:

• the title of the paper;
• the name of the student submitting the paper;
• the student’s educational institution and degree programme; and
• the student’s address, telephone or mobile phone number and academic email address.

All identifying information should be removed from the paper using the Inspect Document function in Word.  The name of the student and the institution they attend should not appear anywhere in the document.

The deadline for submissions is 31 October 2024 at 23:59 BST.

All submissions will be acknowledged.

Award

Papers will be judged anonymously by the review committee.  The winning paper will be selected by the committee based on, among other factors,

• depth and thoroughness of research;
• originality of analysis;
• organisation and structure;
• quality of writing;
• difficulty of subject matter; and
• accurate and appropriate referencing and citation of sources.

The author of the winning paper will be awarded £3,000 and will be given complementary membership in IFA UK for the 2025 calendar year if he or she is resident in the United Kingdom in 2025.  The committee may, in its sole discretion, decide to split the prize or award additional prizes.  It also reserves the right to award no prize if it determines, in its sole discretion, that no submission is worthy of the prize.  In all cases, the decision of the committee shall be final.

Competition winners will be notified by 31 December 2024.

Effect of Submission

By submitting a paper, the student agrees that

• the student has read and accepts the competition rules;
• the paper is the original work of the student, and the student consents for the paper to be submitted to Turnitin or a similar text-matching service;
• the student releases IFA UK from any and all liability in connection with the submission; and
• the student’s name and the title of the paper may be used by IFA UK for publication in any medium and for editorial, advertising and other promotional usage, without compensation, in connection with the promotion of this writing competition and any succeeding writing competitions sponsored by IFA UK.

Copyright in the paper remains with the author.

Enquiries

Any inquiries regarding the competition should be directed to IFA UK at admin@ifa-uk-org.