This work contains the full text of the papers presented at the fourth Tax Law History Conference in July 2008. The Conference was organised by the Cambridge Law Faculty''s Centre for Tax Law.

The matters discussed are broad and include the extent to which charges levied by the Court of Wards were seen as taxes, the seventeenth century poll tax, traders, the excise and the in early nineteenth century England and the right of the Crown''s right to elect between different heads of charge to income tax. There are also chapters on taxation in the reign of King John and Stamp Duties in the 18th Century.

International tax matters include a history of company residence and a paper on the first UK-Australia Double Tax Agreement. Papers concentrating on other countries include papers on the history of income tax in Malta (1641-1949), the history of land tax in Australia, the history of the legal definition of charity and its application to tax law and a paper on the psychology of taxation as shown by the 1936 US Election.