Often, serious discussions about taxation issues focus on the near-term and the local view. And yet in today’s environment of rapid regulatory change, increasing coordination between tax authorities across borders and complex organizational structures as more and more companies do business in multiple jurisdictions, I feel we need a longer-term view. #longtermview

What might the future of tax look like?

Our general attitudes to the future tend to range across multiple spectrums of optimism and pessimism, fear and embrace, and continuity and dislocation as examples. One of the wonderful things about being human is that we can not only flick from one part of the spectrum to another with little prompting, but also hold multiple views across these spectrums at the same time.

Recently, I was able to develop a discussion paper to help prompt thoughts about the future generally and how that will shape taxation specifically. Underlying this paper is a philosophy of meliorism. This word dates from the mid-19th century and is a belief that ultimately the world is getting better. Thus, there is a positive predisposition. This, however, is tempered by the knowledge that the past 60 years have provided most of those living in this period with many benefits which are not sustainable, and that we face challenges that we do not seem prepared to meet.

Whatever one’s attitude to the future, thinking about it provides the positive environment for agility and flexibility that we all need in our businesses and careers. Thinking about the future is itself beneficial.

You can read the paper in full here, and I hope it will assist you in picturing what the practice of tax will be like in 2025. Right or wrong, such imagining will help guide the journey.