09 April 2025

Obituary - Professor Glen Loutzenhiser (1969–2025)

Reprinted from British Tax Review with permission.

Obituary written by Emeritus Professor Judith Freedman

Glen Loutzenhiser, Assistant Editor of the British Tax Review, author of Tiley’s Revenue Law, and Professor of Tax Law at Oxford University and Tutorial Fellow in Law of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, died on 2 February 2025 after a brave two-year battle with cancer. The tax community has lost a leading scholar and author and an outstanding teacher. Those who knew Glen and worked with him will miss a positive, kind and loyal colleague and friend who was always ready to assist with wonderful good humour. The greatest loss of all is of course to Glen’s wife, Eleanor, who is the production editor of this Review, and to his son Toby, of whom Glen was rightly proud.

Glen’s early years were spent in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in Canada. Even as a child his sister reports that he was “always busy”— something that continued even through his illness. In 1991, Glen graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce Degree (with Great Distinction) from the University of Saskatchewan and trained as an accountant with Deloitte & Touche in Toronto, qualifying with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario in 1993. At this point, he began work as an in-house accounting manager responsible for tax compliance and tax planning matters involving his employer company and its US subsidiary.

Not content with his accountancy qualification, however, Glen decided to enrol at the University of Toronto, where he studied law, being awarded a Bachelor of Laws (with Honours) in 1999. It was during this time that Glen was fortunate to meet the first major academic influence on his tax career, David G. Duff, now a distinguished Professor of Law at the University of British Columbia, but then a very new tax academic. Glen’s previous knowledge of tax, as well as his natural ability, meant he shone in his tax classes and was hired by Professor Duff as a research assistant. Although initially Glen had been trying to escape tax by going to law school, he was drawn back into the net by this fruitful contact. Glen assisted Professor Duff with his work on interpretation of tax legislation, which seems to have given him a taste for the academic side of tax law and helped to set him on the path that he eventually followed. While still a student at Toronto, Glen produced his first tax publication, addressing the principle of estoppel as applied to statements by the revenue authority.

By the time this paper was published, Glen was pursuing articles at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, which was and remains one of Canada’s leading firms in the field of tax law. There he came under the wing of partner Scott Wilkie, who recalls Glen as being marked out by his intellectual adventurousness and by having the courage of his convictions. Glen was hired into the tax group at Osler and it was clear that
he could have had a successful law firm career, but by this time, he had caught the academic bug well and truly and was collaborating with Professor Duff on a conference paper on tax policy.

The next step was his admission to the University of Cambridge on a Clarendon Commonwealth Scholarship to do a Master of Laws; a big leap into the unknown. At Cambridge, Glen met his second major academic mentor, Professor John Tiley. Although Glen was only in Cambridge for one year, he made a great impression on Professor Tiley who, with his usual insight, picked out Glen as a future star with the potential to be a first rate tax academic. Glen graduated with a first class Master of Laws from Cambridge and Professor Tiley encouraged him to apply for a post at Oxford, the McGrigors Career Development Fellowship in Tax Law at Christ Church, set up to support the newly established undergraduate tax course in the Law Faculty. It was quickly apparent that Glen was the person for the job—his presentation at interview on taxation of employee share schemes managed to be clear and entertaining—quite a challenge! It was clear that he would make a great teacher and Glen was duly appointed in 2004. I would like to think that this led to his third academic partnership. This was his 20 year professional relationship with me starting with me as his supervisor but developing into one of
co-teaching, working together on this Review, co-authoring other publications and creating new
courses together. Eventually, I am certain that he taught me as much as I taught him.

The career development fellowship was such a success that we were able to go on and create a University lectureship in taxation, which Glen then applied for and was appointed to and which he held at St Hugh’s until the time of his death. In 2021, the University of Oxford awarded him the title of Professor of Tax Law in recognition of his distinction.

Glen taught on the undergraduate Taxation Law course alongside colleagues Peter Clarke, Edwin Simpson and myself and soon began to lead it. He enjoyed introducing students to tax law for the first time and instilling in many of them the love of tax law that he felt himself—often much to their surprise! As his former student, now barrister, David Tipping, mentioned at the memorial service held for Glen at St Hugh’s College, students often chose this course because they had heard that Glen was an engaging teacher, who always found time to help them. This is not to suggest that he gave them an easy ride. Glen insisted on rigour, including the study of primary sources, on all his courses. But, typically, Glen spent many hours of his own time compiling a set of legislative provisions for use by the students to make their lives easier while ensuring that they studied the topic in the way he believed that they should.

In his teaching, Glen continued in the tradition of Professor Tiley, which I have also endeavoured to follow and, with Glen and others, to develop. This approach is to understand and teach tax law in a broad and demanding way, commencing with technical competence and the ability to use primary sources, but recognising that that is never enough, and drawing upon a range of disciplines to shed light on these issues. Too often the focus in tax courses is on either the first or the second of these methodologies. The hardest task is to combine and integrate them completely, and this is what Glen believed we should do and what he put into practice so cogently and inspiringly in his teaching, as well as in his writing.

From this undergraduate course, several now very distinguished tax lawyers have emerged. In addition, Glen taught with Professors Roger Smith, Edwin Simpson and myself on the Oxford BCL tax courses, which have also ensured that many Masters level students in Oxford learned some tax law and sometimes encouraged them to specialise in tax and go on to have fine careers in this area. I particularly enjoyed co-teaching on the BCL with Glen; our different backgrounds in law and accounting led to interesting debates and hopefully highlighted to students that, contrary to popular opinion, tax law is nuanced, conceptually challenging and involves just as many uncertainties and controversies as any other area of law, if not more.

While teaching both these courses, Glen embarked on his doctoral thesis on “Income Splitting,
Settlements and Avoidance: Taxing the Family on Business Profits”. This was a challenging enterprise, since there was no provision for part time doctoral students at that time and he met with some faculty resistance to the idea, but Glen did not let this kind of thing set him back. Many would have found this too much of a load, but Glen set about it with his usual hard-working and matter-of-fact attitude and completed this valuable thesis, integrating technical tax law with policy discussions, within four years. As his supervisor, I never once had to remind him of a deadline. The thesis was subsequently the basis of several articles, book chapters and notes.

In addition to teaching tax courses, Glen played a full part at his college, St Hugh’s, which he considered to be his academic home and of which he was very proud. He tutored students there in EU law and was often called upon for administrative tasks, at which he excelled, as with everything to which he turned his hand. Both in college life and in the Law Faculty he was seen as a colleague who would provide wise, incisive and calm advice with gentle good humour that could diffuse difficult situations.

Glen’s wisdom, precision and calmness were also important to the establishment of the Oxford MSc in Taxation, which required navigation through many committees. As one of the four founding directors (alongside Professors Mike Devereux, John Vella and myself and working with Visiting Professor Philip Baker), Glen played an important part in shaping the degree and convincing the Faculty and University of its value. Once the degree commenced in 2016, he was one of its Directors, taught on several courses and was supervisor to many students, contributing to every aspect of the degree’s success. As he was also a valued member of the advisory board of the Oxford Centre for Business Taxation, Glen fed into every aspect of the growth of the tax community and tax research at Oxford University.

The number of tributes to Glen that have poured in from students from all his courses, both undergraduate and graduate, and his doctoral students, when his death was announced, are testament to Glen’s aptitude for making every student feel that they mattered to him and to his gentle nurturing but firm approach.

Beyond Oxford, Glen also made a major contribution to the tax community. He worked with Professor Patricia Apps and Professor Richard Vann from Sydney University. He participated in IFA, IFS and EATLP conferences and publications and also acted as convenor of the tax section of the Society of Legal Scholars for many years. Glen hosted many tax academics when they visited Oxford and was always ready to advise them, especially those just starting out on an academic career. Recently, showing just how wide his range was, Glen contributed to the interdisciplinary Wealth Tax Commission. Working with others, he wrote chapters on liquidity issues and valuation.

These were not the most obviously exciting areas, but they were possibly the hardest, and vital to the project. As in so many other areas, Glen made no fuss about taking on this difficult task but just got on with working with his co-authors to deliver his chapters, efficiently and effectively. Meanwhile Glen also co-authored articles on tax and Brexit and a book chapter on tax law and accounting with me, trawling through vast quantities of material to ensure that all the questions posed by the editors were properly addressed. It was always a pleasure to work with him, due to his acuity, flexibility, willingness to overcome difficulties and gentle methods of persuasion.

He was a contributor to many books including the major work on comparative law edited by Brian J. Arnold, Graeme Cooper and Hugh J. Ault7 and wrote frequently for the British Tax Review. In addition to this prolific output, Glen was continuing with his heavyweight revisions to Tiley’s Revenue Law, the seminal work originally written by Professor Tiley. Initially, Glen simply assisted Tiley and then they worked on the 7th edition together in 2012, but after Tiley’s death in 2013, Glen carried on with the book on his own, making some major changes as required by the publishers to slim the book down and make it viable in the modern age. With typical thoroughness he also arranged to provide accompanying online notes and updates and put back some of the excised material in that way.

This was truly a labour of love, fulfilling a promise made to Professor Tiley. In the modern research environment, this is not work that attracts acclaim and plaudits, yet it is of great significance to the teaching of tax as an academic subject and it is to be hoped that someone will take up the baton, despite the lack of incentives for this important work in academia. It may well take more than one person to continue this demanding task, which Glen managed alone. Glen was continually watching for new developments and kept detailed notes of the updates he needed to make, so that one could always rely on him to know the latest case or other development. He had an astonishing range of knowledge and understanding, since he also covered academic writing in the book. This made Glen a natural for the role of sole consultant editor of the Taxation Volumes of Halsbury’s Laws of England and Wales, which he managed alongside Tiley’s Revenue Law—an extraordinary workload that few others could have managed.

On top of all this writing, research, administration and teaching, on my retirement, Glen, working with another very good colleague, Rita de la Feria, somehow managed to find the time to arrange a conference to mark my departure and to produce a book of essays by colleagues and academic contacts arising out of that event. It is not in the natural course of things that the recipient should be writing the obituary of one who presented her with such a gift and this is a great sadness for me. I already treasured the book greatly and now do so more than ever.

Last but not least, Glen was first Book Review Editor (from 2011) and then Assistant Editor of the British Tax Review. The editorial panel relied heavily on his assessments and his work on managing the work flow. Glen worked with his wife, Eleanor, as our production editor. In this they were a strong team, as in everything. This was not a coincidence, as Eleanor had been our editor at Sweet and Maxwell before Glen came to Oxford. Eleanor organised a wonderful party for the 50th anniversary of the Review in 2006. I had dragged Glen along since I had already started my campaign to get him to join the editorial team. This was a double win, since he found Eleanor and that was the start of their life together. Their happiness was lovely to see and this development had the added benefit for the tax community, and to me, that Glen was committed to the Review working in partnership with Eleanor, as in everything. This may be the one and only marriage facilitated by the Review.

Glen and I worked together in so many ways and knowing him enriched my working life immeasurably. In the past two years, while battling illness, he continued all aspects of his duties with no complaint and bravely protected all around him. But despite all his impressive career accomplishments, Glen’s family was rightly the most important achievement to him and we send them our profound sympathy.

Glen’s life was cut short too early but his contribution was a major one. He would no doubt have continued to play a very important part in tax in Oxford and the wider tax community had this been permitted to him, and his loss will be felt deeply in many ways, but the impact of his writing, teaching and humanity remain and will not be forgotten.