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| The European Tax College is a joint venture of the Fiscal Institutes of the K.U.Leuven and Tilburg University. These Institutes bring together in a unique setting the best academic traditions, top-level research and educational experience, organisational experience, organisational capabilities, and considerable assets to pave the way towards the future in the field of European and international tax law. |
The Catholic University Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) was established by Pope Martinus V in 1425, at the request of Duke John
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IV of Brabant and is the oldest Catholic university still in use in the world. With its 27,000 students it is by far the largest and most comprehensive university in Belgium. It has more than 3,000 professors and scientific staff and more than one in three of Leuven's inhabitants are connected with the university. There has been a long and very special relationship between town and gown. In addition to extensive faculty libraries, the main university library has more than one million volumes. It is famous because it was destroyed during the world wars in 1914 and again in 1944. Thanks to the generosity of US, UK and Commonwealth universities, the library was twice rebuilt in all its splendour.
The Institute of Tax Law (Instituut Fiscaal Recht) is part of the Law Faculty. With more than 3,000 students and approximately 250 staff, the Law Faculty is the largest of Belgium. More than one third of all lawyers graduating in the Dutch speaking part of the country are graduates from Leuven. Many of its 13,000 alumni hold prominent positions in government, business, and legal professions. Each year approximately 300 students from other European universities study in Leuven. The faculty offers the basic law degree and the degree in notarial sciences as well as a degree in criminology. In addition it offers a Master of Laws degree in English, which attracts top students from all over the world.
Postgraduate degrees are offered in company law, and tax law for Belgian students. The curriculum features more than 100 optional courses of which one third are in English.
The faculty with a well-established international reputation and over 80 exchange agreements world-wide - houses the administrative office of the European Law Faculties Association. Its students regularly win prizes in international moot court competitions and in unofficial rankings over the last five years it has been placed consistently among the top five European law schools.
The Institute of Tax Law
The Institute of Tax Law consists of nine research and teaching staff members, four associate members, and one administrative secretary. It operates within the department of economic law and focuses exclusively on tax law. Issues of public finance are dealt with in the faculty of Economics and Business Administration. It offers a total of eleven tax law courses in the Faculties of Law and Economics ranging, from general to specialised courses on, for example, custom and excise. It runs a special postgraduate programme providing immediate access to the tax profession. Recently the emphasis in research has been on European taxation, mergers and acquisitions, VAT and criminal and procedural aspects of taxation.
Members of the Institute of Tax Law have been teaching in various postgraduate tax programmes all over Europe and in the USA, Japan, China and Australia. They have been involved in many technical missions associated with tax reform organised by the OECD, the IMF and the European Union.
Tilburg University (Universiteit van Tilburg), founded in 1927, was originally a School of Economics. It is now a fully accredited government financed university with almost 12.000 students. The university specialises in the social sciences and humanities.
Tilburg is a dynamic university with top-quality research and excellent educational programmes, developed according to a special didactic approach known as 'Student Centred Instruction'. The emphasis in SCI is on independent study and selfdiscipline.
Internationalisation has a high priority and there is a strong commitment to international co-operation in both education and research. Apart from the various international programmes in which Tilburg participates, the university has bilateral agreements with various universities all over the world. It has been investing heavily in internationalising the curriculum and student and staff exchanges. Many courses are offered in English and these are open to both Dutch and foreign students.
The library, located at the heart of the Tilburg University campus and equipped with the very latest IT facilities, is one of the most modern in Europe.
Fiscal Institute Tilburg
The Fiscal Institute Tilburg (FIT) was established in 1968 as an interfaculty department. It is a joint venture of the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
The Faculty of Law - founded in 1963 - currently offers a general, all-round curriculum with a wide range of courses. There are four degree programmes: Dutch Law, Fiscal Law, European Law and Administrative Law & Public Administration. The Faculty has a strong emphasis on jurisprudence and comparative law, and an international approach to the study of law. There are approximately 2,300 law students and the faculty employs more than 300 members of staff. Independent quality assessment reports, covering both research and education, rate Tilburg Law Faculty at the top in the Netherlands and it has consistently been among the top five in Europe.
At present, the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration is the university's main faculty and also one of the largest in the Netherlands. Independent quality assessment reports indicate that this faculty also belongs to the top in the Netherlands. Established in 1988 as research institute for economics, econometrics and management, the CentER for Economic Research and its faculty have acquired an international reputation for excellence in research. The faculty has more than 300 staff and approximately 4,500 students. It offers Master's degree programmes in Economics, Business Administration, Fiscal Economics, Econometrics, Information Management, and International Business.
With a research staff of over 35, the FIT is the largest Fiscal Institute in Europe. Recent external academic reviews rate the quality and quantity of its research and degree programmes as outstanding. It initiated and coordinates the EUCOTAX network, the oldest education and research cooperative of fiscal institutes of European universities. Research focuses on the taxation of enterprises, net wealth tax, structure of systems of taxation, methodology of tax law, value-added tax, international tax law, and comparative tax law.
Students can specialise either in Tax Economics or in Tax Law, depending on the faculty they chose for their first-year study (Economics or Law). The tax courses are identical for both groups of students, mainly covering comparative tax law elements, with an emphasis on direct taxation. The differentiation between Tax Economics and Tax Law is established in additional courses.