North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership

Peter Duncan, Criminology, Social Policy and Social Work, University of Manchester (2020 Cohort)

My PhD research aims to understand how tax abuse in English men’s professional football is organised with a view to informing more effective and efficient control. By ‘tax abuse’ I mean any activity in which financial advantage is achieved by illicitly withholding taxes from the state. Tax abuse may be perpetrated by individual or corporate taxpayers and may come in various forms, including activities which are frequently referred to as ‘tax evasion’, ‘tax avoidance’ or ‘aggressive tax planning’. Tax abuse is therefore only sometimes a crime. At other times tax abuse might only constitute a civil infraction – such as tax avoidance schemes that can be counteracted and sanctioned via the UK’s General Anti-Abuse Rule – whilst others might not represent any formalised wrongdoing despite being socially harmful and morally questionable.