Judith Freedman, CBE, FBA

Judith Freedman is Emeritus Professor of Taxation Law and Policy, having been the inaugural Professor of Taxation Law in the University from 2001-2019.  Prior to this, she worked in the corporate tax department of Freshfields before joining the University of Surrey and then at the London School of Economics (LSE), Whilst at the LSE, she lectured and researched on tax and company law and was seconded for a time to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies as Senior Research Fellow in Company and Commercial Law.

At Oxford, her focus has been taxation, particularly corporate and business taxation, with special interests in tax policy and design, small businesses, the interaction between law and accounting, tax avoidance, tax and corporate social responsibility, and the use of discretion in the administration of taxation.  She was instrumental in the establishment of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation and was its Director of Legal Research for several years.  She also participated in the setting up of the MSc in Taxation in Oxford and was one of its first directors. She has served on a number of Law Society, DTI (as it then was) and Inland Revenue Committees and advisory groups and was a member of the Company Law Review's working party on small companies. She was on the Aaronson Tax Avoidance Study Group appointed to report to the Exchequer Secretary on the question of a General Anti-avoidance Rule and is a past member of the Board of the UK’s Office of Tax Simplification . She has held the Anton Philips Visiting Chair at the University of Tilburg and is an Adjunct Professor in the Australian School of Taxation and Business Law, University of New South Wales. She is the general editor of the British Tax Review and has been on several other  journal editorial boards.. She is a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and was one of the few lawyers contributing to the Mirrlees report 'Reforming the Tax System for the 21st Century’.  Judith was appointed a CBE in the 2013 New Year's Honours List for her services to tax research and as an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation in January 2015 and in 2016 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. 

Judith has now retired from employment in the University, but continues to teach on the MSc in Taxation and edit the British Tax Review. In addition, she is Chair of the Tax Law Review Committee of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.  She is an emeritus fellow of Worcester College and an associate scholar and Centre for Business Taxation International Research Fellow at the Said Business School. 

Further information about tax at Oxford can be found on the tax pages of the Faculty of Law website and the website of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation