Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, England changed its system of raising revenues from tax farming, combined with the granting of monopolies, to direct collection within the government administration. Rents were then transferred from tax farmers and monopolists to the central government...

Even if a tax planning structure is legal, it canstill be ‘‘unwanted.’’ However, those structuresmight soon be wanted — for disclosure. ‘‘Unwanted’’structures do not violate the letter of the law, butstill might infringe on the spirit of the law.[...]

This essay is a reply to the famous paper by John Gardner: Legal Positivism: 5½ Myths and the more recent paper by John Prebble: Kelsen, the Principle of Exclusion of Contradictions, and General Anti-Avoidance Rules. The reply is developed from the perspective of tax law where the respective...