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Professor Byrnes Lectures for University of Amsterdam’s International Tax Program

January 22, 2014

William Byrnes lectures for University of Amsterdam’s International Tax program
William Byrnes lectures for University of Amsterdam’s International Tax program

Following his October presentation in Moscow at Moscow Finance University organized with University of Amsterdam, Professor William Byrnes was invited to lecture last week for the intersession international tax course of the University of Amsterdam’s Centre for Tax Law. While at the University of Amsterdam January 13-17, he presented on the topic of international information exchange among countries, met with Dean Dr. Edgar du Perron on collaborative distance education opportunities, and attended the European Law Student Association’s (ELSA) annual Groot Juridisch Dictee of the Amsterdam chapter.

William Byrnes noted, “Dr. Dennis Weber, the Director of the Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law, is a renowned jurist and author on tax issue brought before the European Court of Justice. He is frequently mentioned as powerhouse among European Tax Law professors. In 2015, Amsterdam will begin offering the LL.M. of International Taxation in English for a very selective group of professionals. With his robust full-time tax faculty and cadre of Ph.D. candidates from around the world, I expect it to quickly become the premier international tax degree within Europe, perhaps globally.” 

Professor Dennis Weber included, “I visited Thomas Jefferson’s campus last February when I lectured to its tax students about international tax risk management and also about practical aspects of careers in the tax field.  I became very intrigued with how Associate Dean William Byrnes dynamically engaged students on campus and worldwide through leveraging communication and multimedia technologies. We are investigating potentially collaborating on joint online initiatives in the future and look forward to discussing these further when I return to San Diego this March to deliver my next international tax lectures.”

“Of all my international invitations” Professor Byrnes added, “University of Amsterdam is my favorite because I am an alumni and have fond memories and friends from my three years on campus when I studied international tax law, and participating as an active member of ELSA Amsterdam.  The University of Amsterdam led to my initial academic opportunities in South Africa because my fellowship dissertation on transfer pricing profit-margin based methodologies was, at that time, quite unique and South Africa was re-thinking its tax system.  With the G20 and OECD’s new agenda against base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), transfer pricing is now a prominent topic of study in most tax law programs, but two decades ago only Amsterdam offered me the opportunity to delve deeply into it via a shared research program at the IBFD.”

Professor Byrnes continued, “Also, Dr. Weber, Bruno Da Silva, and I had the opportunity to discuss several future collaborative publications stretching out through 2015 and beyond, including authoring a Lexis book on international tax for the Asian academic and professional market to be translated into several local languages, reworking a Lexis publication on tax treaties, and finally, expansion of my Lexis transfer pricing publication from the U.S. perspective to a global, comparative approach.”

“Moreover, I explored with Dr. Edgar du Perron, Dean of University of Amsterdam Faculty of Law, and Dr. Weber the ‘flipping the classroom’ approach to distance education and how we may implement some joint international tax courses in this regard that can receive status as professional designations from various financial service authorities and associations.  Such courses could become the starting point for Amsterdam to leverage for the undergraduate law courses.  It was interesting to learn from Dean Perron that a group of entrepreneurial Amsterdam law students have captured lecture recordings of some of their courses, splicing them into multimedia course outlines and then selling them, albeit potentially without obtaining the faculty members authorization.”

William Byrnes had brunch with former Thomas Jefferson graduate programs employee Hester Ros who returned to Amsterdam where she is employed as Business Development manager for the large BENELUX law firm of Stibbe Simont.