On Wednesday, 12 February 2014, prominent speakers from the legal and business fields participated in the conference “Business and Taxation in Economic Recovery”, organized by the UIC Faculty of Law together with the law firms Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira and Molins & Silva.

Before an audience of 300 people, the lawyer Jesús-María Silva, the Head of the Criminal Law Department at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, gave a talk about tax evasion. Dr. Luis Manuel Alonso, the Head of the Financial Law Department at the Universitat de Barcelona, spoke about the challenges of the proposed tax reform that is now being finalized by the government, while the lawyer Alfredo Domínguez gave a lecture about criminal compliance.

At midday there was a roundtable discussion on taxation, growth and competitiveness moderated by Andrés Tejero Sala, the General Director of the Family Enterprise Institute (IEF), with the participation of Mariano Puig Planas, the president emeritus of the Puig Corporation; José M. Serra, the President of the Catalana Occidente Group; and Fernando Casado Juan, the General Director of the National Competitiveness Council.

The conference, organized as the official inauguration of the UIC Master’s Degree Programme in Tax Planning and Consultancy, was closed by Germà Gordó, the Catalan Minister of Justice, together with Dr. Javier Junceda, the Dean of the UIC Faculty of Law, and Carles Puig, a partner in the law firm Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira, who helped organize the conference.

“Taxation is usually associated with obligation, but I like to think of it as a right”, the minister said in his speech. He went on to say, “We need to ask ourselves if our form of taxation is equivalent to that of more advanced countries, not just as far as regional distribution is concerned, but also on the basis of individual tax rates and what is given in return”. He also applauded the initiative of the UIC Master’s Degree Programme in Tax Planning and Consultancy for the guidance it offers professionals in this field.

“Qualified tax consultancy is one of the most promising career paths”, said Carles Puig in reference to the master’s programme. “To reach a level of excellence in the field, the knowledge and skills acquired at the university level aren’t enough. Those who want to be competitive in this market have to complete their education with a specialized master’s degree”.

In his closing address, Junceda said, “It has been a privilege to bring together the parties representing the different aspects of the upcoming tax reform: on the one hand, prominent lawyers and, on the other, businesspeople whose vision is important, as they are taxpayers and these changes that will affect everyone’s tax outlook”.