As this year 2020 is withering and will soon be gone, it is an understatement that we all will find it hard to not look at the past year with regret. Almost since its first inception days, this year 2020 has trapped all of us in a spiral of pain and dispensed a great dose of powerlessness throughout the world. Like the chicken and egg in the cartoon below, this year 2020 has failed to disclose any good promises but caught all of us in a cobweb quite early on.

We at Kluwer International Tax Blog acknowledge all of this in bidding farewell to 2020. However, it would be too unfair to deny that this year 2020 has also seen some important improvements to the blog. As our passionate readers noticed, a new section dedicated to VAT/GST was opened and a new editor, Dr Giorgio Beretta, in charge of it was appointed. We are extremely glad that new authors from different walks of life have joined the blog, which has seen an overall increase in the numbers of readers also thanks to alliances with Kluwer’s tax journals Intertax, EC Tax Review, and Highlights and Insights on European Taxation. Remarkably, some blog posts are now accompanied by cartoons giving a touch of humour to our ‘taxing’ life (definitely, we need it!). Last but not least, we have just released our first talk podcast: so, please do not feel too ‘tax lonely’ during these New Year’s holidays but listen to the interview between Professor Vikram Chand, Managing Editor of the Kluwer’s blog, and Isabel Verlinden, International Tax Partner at PwC.

While leaving this year 2020 behind with COVID-19 vaccines and economic recovery plans (the two shining eggs in the cartoon below) as new signs of hope, we cherish our commitment to improving the quality and content of the blog also during 2021.

Best wishes to all our readers for the new year 2021!