Institute for Tax Law
Welcome to the Chairs of Professor Dr Joachim Englisch and Professor Dr Marcel Krumm!
The Institute for Tax Law at the University of Münster was officially founded in 1934. On 12 April 1934, the Ministry for Science, Art and Education authorized Ottmar Bühler, who was the first holder of the chair, to use the term "Institut für Steuerrecht" (Institute for Tax Law) as the official name of what had formerly been known as "Seminar for Steuerrecht" (Seminar for Tax Law). Thus, the Institute for Tax Law is the oldest of its kind in Germany.
After Bühler retired, Friedrich Klein acted as Director from 1950 to 1974, before Paul Kirchhof, later Judge at the German Federal Constitutional Court, chaired the Institute from 1975 to 1981. In 1982, Dieter Birk was appointed Director and held the chair for almost 30 years.
Since 2011, Joachim Englisch has been Director of the Institute; since 2018, he has shared the co-directorship with Marcel Krumm.
Substantive rule of law calls for an equal distribution of the tax burden upon individual taxpayers. [...] The issues of tax justice are not transcendental; they need to be solved here, here and now.
Reforming the tax system may not be easy or popular in the short term, but it holds out the prospect of significant economic gains and hence the promise of higher living standards in the long term.
IFA Europe Madrid
F.A.Z. Tax Conference
From 25 to 27 February 2026, Professor Englisch participated in the F.A.Z. Tax Conference of the Economy in Berlin. On the first day of the conference, he participated in two panels: First, he introduced the topic of minimum taxation in the panel on “Tax Developments in Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States of America.” Second, in another panel on “Tax Developments in the United States of America,” he commented on the views of the representative of the US Treasury Department on the international coordination of taxation of digital business models. Prof. Englisch was particularly critical of the idea of fundamentally re-discussing the benchmark principles for this at the multinational level; instead, he advocated a pragmatic approach to dealing with the emerging fragmentation of taxation standards in this area. On the third day of the conference, Professor Englisch spoke on another panel about state aid law aspects of VAT concessions.
Key Note in Conference Proceedings
In January 2026, the Proceedings of the Conference "CJEU - Recent Developments in Value Added Tax" organized by the WU Wien were published. The contain a key note by Professor Joachim Englisch concerning „Extensive interpretation of the law in CJEU case law in VAT“. On almost 50 pages, the contribution analyzes developments, fractions and case groups of the extensive interpretation doctrine on the basis of the about 1000 CJEU judgments on VAT issues.
PhD Retreat in Rothenberge
Lectures at the PhD School in Bergamo
On 17 November 2025, Joachim Englisch gave presentations on two of his current VAT research projects upon invitation by Professor Dr Sabbi from the University Bergamo's Faculty of Law. The event lasted four hours and gave opportunities to discussions. Following the event, the exchange on professional issues continued in a smaller group with three colleagues from the University of Bergamo.
