Professor Kerrie Sadiq

Research Overview

Professor Sadiq’s primary expertise is in the areas of international tax, tax expenditures and capital gains tax.  Details of her extensive publication record can be found under the 'Publications' tab. Research impact beyond academia is listed below.

Impact Beyond Academia

Professor Sadiq has been leading research in the area of international tax system reform for the last 20 years. This is demonstrated by her international reputation, appointments, and awards as wells as internationally by her extensive publications, presentations and professional contributions in the area. Professor Sadiq has been actively involved in promoting unitary taxation as an alternative to the arm’s length pricing requirement in the transfer pricing model. Only recently has the impact of this work and possible regulatory changes been seen as imperative by the broader community due to the recognition by the OECD of the significant issues surrounding base erosion and profit shifting as well as recent evidence of highly aggressive tax planning by multinational entities such as Google, Apple, Starbucks and Amazon, to name a few.

The impact of Professor Sadiq’s work in this area was most recently evidenced during Australia’s presidency of the G20 and the Senate Inquiry into Corporate Tax Avoidance and Aggressive Tax Planning.  In recent years she has been quoted numerous times in the media, interviewed on radio, had invitations to speak at prominent events, for example CEDA functions, and authored several articles for The Conversation. Professor Sadiq’s well-known work in international tax, specifically unitary taxation and tax justice issues, has resulted in postgraduate research students undertaking projects under her supervision. Apart from several graduated students, she is currently supervising postgraduate students undertaking theses in both unitary taxation using formulary apportionment and transparency and accountability issues, including investigating country-by country reporting.

Professor Sadiq has a successful track record of obtaining competitive grant income in this area including an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2022-26) to report on international taxation in the digital era.  Further she has received a CPA Grant (2018-19) to produce an edited volume to consider the domestic implementation of BEPS in 18 jurisdictions and a project contained within the grant lead by Professor Sol Picciotto of Lancaster University and funded in 2013-14 by the International Centre for Tax and Development (total grant £155,000). Professor Sadiq also has a successful track record of leading applications and receiving competitive grant income from other sources such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia. Professor Sadiq’s research (with Mark Burton) entitled Tax Expenditure Management: A Critical Assessment (2013) has been published by Cambridge University Press, as part of their Cambridge Tax Law Series. Cambridge University Press is one of the most prestigious legal publishing houses globally.

Submissions to Government

Domestically, Professor Sadiq has also been actively involved in meetings and submissions to the Australian Federal Government Treasury in relation to amendments to the international tax regime and issues around international tax avoidance. Given Professor Sadiq’s extensive knowledge in this area and contribution to the field, she is well placed to provide a significant contribution to the field which has only very recently been deemed significant by the broader community and which will have a large scale fiscal impact on domestic jurisdictions where multinational entities are minimising their tax liability through aggressive tax planning.

Invitations

On the basis of her knowledge of international tax law, and her international reputation as a leading tax scholar, Professor Sadiq was a Visiting Professor, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Institute for Australian and International Tax Law, in 2023. She was a Visiting Professor, Taxation Department, University of Pretoria, South Africa, in October 2019. From 2008 to 2018 she was an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Business Law and Taxation Department, Monash University. Professor Sadiq was awarded an Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury (NZ) in 2015.  She has been a visiting professor at the University of Western Ontario where she was invited to teach a course in international tax. She has also been invited as a visiting professor to give seminars on tax avoidance at Auckland University of Technology. These invitations, and others to present papers and chair sessions at international and domestic conferences, demonstrates recognition of Professor Sadiq’s international reputation as a taxation law scholar. In 2016, Professor Sadiq was invited to present at a meeting of the OECD Committee on Fiscal Affairs, in Kyoto, Japan. This was the inaugural meeting of the Enlarged Framework on International Tax, which included around 100 countries, a key event in the continuing process of reform of international corporate tax rules, the project on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS).  In June 2012, Professor Sadiq was invited to present her work on unitary taxation for multinational financial institutions by the Tax Justice Network at a conference held in Helsinki in the Parliament of Finland. In October 2011, Professor Sadiq was invited to be an academic participant at the Australian Federal Government’s Tax Forum held at Parliament House, Canberra. In April 2015, Professor Sadiq was invited to give evidence before the Australian Senate Inquiry into Corporate Tax Avoidance and Aggressive Tax Planning.

Evidence of Impact and Engagement

Professor Sadiq has worked extensively in the area of tax policy, particularly international tax policy and tax expenditures management. The quality and significance of the research is demonstrated by the following:

Academic Contribution and Recognition Professor Sadiq’s research in the field of international tax, and specifically unitary taxation, has to date been recognised as making a valuable contribution to the field in addressing both the theoretical underpinnings as well as the practical significance of alternative means of allocating the profits of multinational entities between taxing jurisdictions. Her work has been published extensively with the findings of key articles reprinted by international journals (for example, USA) and/or translated for foreign audiences (for example, China). The findings of her research have also made valuable contributions to international conferences.

Impact in the Media Professor Sadiq’s internationally published work has a focus on a model which reflects the ‘economic reality’ of the firm. In particular, this research is recognised as contributing to the understanding of the history, application and difficulties associated with the current transfer pricing regime in both Australia and internationally and has offered a viable alternative model through unitary taxation using formulary apportionment. Professor Sadiq is regularly consulted by journalists for expert views in the area of international tax and tax justice.  Professor Sadiq has written several articles for the Conversation on the topic which were by invitation.  The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) has published her work on international tax reform.  Her speech on ‘The role of the G20 in taxation regulation’ was listed as one of the Top 10 speeches in the Collections of the most influential and interesting speeches from the CEDA platform for 2014. In 2019, she was named in the Top 100 Leading Women in International Tax by the International Fiscal Association.

Impact on Policy Makers Professor Sadiq’s work in international tax has contributed to Treasury meetings (via invitation), a Senate Inquiry and submissions on international tax legislative reform, especially amendments to Australia’s transfer pricing regime as well as aggressive tax planning by corporate taxpayers. These submissions are publicly available via Treasury and promote a fair and just tax regime for taxing multinational entities. Professor Sadiq has also made substantial contributions to the work of the Board of Taxation on the Voluntary Tax Transparency Code.

Impact on the Profession In 2019 Professor Sadiq was recognized in the Top 100 Leading Women in International Tax by the International Fiscal Association. By invitation, Professor Sadiq has contributed to the Taxation Institute of Australia’s international tax agenda as well as presenting seminars to the profession (by invitation) on international transfer pricing and the changing landscape of international tax. Throughout her career, she has contributed to Senate Inquiries and Board of Taxation Reviews of tax policy.