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This review essay suggests considerations to be addressed in research design if research on a taxation subject is to succeed as rigorous accounting research, well grounded in relevant historical scholarship. Tax research must focus on substantive subjects that are recognizable as “accounting”; the methods, approach, and exposition must be “historical” to an acceptable standard; and the research must engage with relevant portions of the existing body of accounting historical scholarship. Further, scholarly engagement with the best researchers and liveliest debates that the disciplines of accounting and history have to offer will enrich the treatment of tax in accounting history more...

Seven British income tax disputes over depreciation (1875–1897) are analyzed in this contextual study. The legal cases reveal how uncertainty over meanings for “depreciation,” “profits,” and “capital” reflected social and political tensions which had commercial accounting implications. Case analysis yields evidence of how judicial support reinforced the Inland Revenue's technical authority over a competing tax administration institution and enabled its modern regulatory control over taxpayers to be constructed. The British example illustrates the ways in which technical and administrative practices may emerge from the contestation of meanings that takes place both in a wide political context and within particular institutional settings. more...