we will not give a reduced rate to what we call special tax reviews,
which are regimes that are basically trying to local income and
interest in royalties essentially.
So those 3 pillars are, I would say,
the fundamentals on the international that I think I would highlight few today.
>> Well thanks Bob, these are three extremely interesting points which
tie in very well with everything we have discussed in our course so far.
So thanks a lot for your insights.
May I perhaps close the interview with asking you a more personal question, and
that is what is it that drives you personally in tax?
>> It's a great question and I thank you.
Told me the other day so I've had a little time to think about it.
I find, first of all, when I mentioned my background,
I started out as a French teacher.
I think the students do appreciate is that the older I get,
the more I realize how much serendipity plays a role in life.
When I was in college I majored in English and French as a minor and
if you had said to me when I was 20 that I'd be a tax lawyer I you might as well as
have said I'd be a rocket scientist, or I'd land on the moon it was completely
outside of my thinking but when I got to law school I did all that.
I took a couple of tax courses, and what's sometimes interesting in life
I did well in them, and then I thought well maybe I can do this.
And then when I got to my first law job, they actually asked me to take a time
doing tax as kind of a would you like it.
I did that.
I did like it, and I'll talk a little bit about what I like and then because I
am basically an internationalist from a very young age,
I started to do anything I could in international tax in my firm.
And then I did that for 25 years.
What I think is good about it is it is actually a very intellectual construct.
What happens in tax and I think as you students move along into it,
you often think of it as kind of a logic system, if you will.
And you start to kind of know what the answers should be.
One of the interesting things in tax season across jurisdictions,
the rules really are similar in the sense that they're conceptually similar.
They may vary in some particulars of course.
And of course, you need to kind of know the particular rules in your jurisdiction.
But part of the fun, when you've practiced tax a while,
is to be able to kind of speak the language and think the logic of tax.
I think in this work over here, the OECD, I'll just add that