A pilgrimage of 'GRACE'

Why the forthcoming general anti-abuse rule (GAAR) should be counterbalanced by a general rule against creative exaction (GRACE).

In the 1960s a disgruntled trade unionist wrote to a national newspaper pointing out that as a young man he had joined a trade union to protect him from his employer and wondering plaintively who was to protect him from his trade union. One of the reasons that the great British public elected a parliament was to protect it from the overweening rapacity of monarchs who believed in the divine right of kings. Who is now to protect the public from the ever-increasing fiscal demands of a legislature which flaunts the divine right of the ballot box?

The courts it is ventured to suggest have signally failed to do so through their enthusiastic...