A handbook for establishing tax clinics.
 
Tax clinics, a government-funded initiative to help people who may not be able to afford professional advice and representation with their tax affairs, have existed in the United States since the early 1990s. Now they are being established throughout the world, particularly in Australia, the UK, and Ireland. This practical handbook explores the benefits that a clinical tax education can have and equips readers with the tools needed to start a clinical tax project. It investigates the ways in which tax clinics can both educate and remedy tax positions for local communities in supporting those without access to the tax profession to understand their tax liabilities. It also explores the higher education setting, in which community tax projects rely on students for their success, offering them the benefits of an alternative learning environment in tax and experience in the tax profession while studying. Beyond identifying the practical benefits, this handbook uses learning from tax clinics to uncover the burdens and impacts of tax policy on more marginalized taxpayers, and how policymakers can tailor tax systems to overcome them.
 

Amy Lawton is a lecturer in tax law at Edinburgh Law School.