FCT scholar awarded Mitchell B. Carroll Prize Carroll Award

The International Congress of the IFA (International Fiscal Association) awarded the Mitchell B. Carroll Prize on December 1st. Carroll Prize to Rita Cunha, an FCT doctoral scholar. The award ceremony, which was held as part of her doctoral thesis "A New Gaar Model: Countering tax avoidance and promoting Investment through legal certainty and the Rule of Law", took place online.

This is the first time that a Portuguese woman has received this prize, which was created in 1948 and is awarded annually by the IFA to innovative research in the field of international taxation. Rita Cunha's doctoral thesis focuses on general anti-abuse rules, how they should be drafted so that they operate effectively in the fight against tax avoidance without compromising the principles of legal certainty and security, the rule of law, and economic investment and growth. The researcher says that her thesis "proposes a new approach to the drafting of general anti-abuse rules, discussing in an original way a series of controversial issues that arise in relation to the interaction of this type of rule with the principles of legal certainty and security in the context of the rule of law".

As this is one of the most prestigious awards in the area of international taxation, Rita Cunha sees this distinction "as the culmination of many years of work, of an academic career that began in Portugal, with a law degree at the Catholic University, passed through New York, with the LLM (Master of Laws) at the New York University School of Law, and ended in London, where I did my doctorate under the guidance of Dr. Philip Baker QC and with the support of the FCT."