Ryuta Takaku, Professor, Faculty of Business and Commerce

The students research international tax law such as tax treaties, transfer pricing taxation and Controlled Foreign Company (CFC), and also discuss a variety of topics including international tax avoidance through precedent studies and case studies, the future of tax systems and tax administration, tax strategies to minimize tax burden by looking at these issues from various angles. Fourth-year students cannot afford to be idle, as they are required to supervise the third-year students, thus being constantly exposed to incisive questions. I have learned a lot from my students whose ideas are flexible and innovative, and we are all improving and learning from each other.

We hold a variety of activities in the seminar I supervise. The students make presentations on international taxation at the Mita Festival. They choose their own topics and spend a lot of time collecting information from books or through interviews, as well as conducting exhaustive discussions on the topic. We also hold debate sessions with seminars within and outside Keio University in order to improve analytical skills and self-expression. Additionally, I organize visits to corporations, hold special lectures given by outside experts, and encourage interaction with international students. The students not only study foreign tax systems, but are also exposed to foreign cultures.

We also put emphasis on building assertiveness and cooperativeness through activities besides research. We aspire to become good at both academics and sports, and I encourage active participation in sporting events such as softball matches with other seminar groups and futsal tournaments, as well as allocating time for sports during our summer study camps. There is discontentment among graduates who used to advance to the university-wide softball tournaments, since recently we have been losing in the preliminary rounds.

I want my students to demonstrate intellectual curiosity, awareness, and to a certain degree, individuality. We welcome international students and returnee students from overseas, as I believe diversity leads to a more dynamic class. I encourage my students, who are studying for qualification examinations, to acquire as many qualifications as possible. There is a variety of career options, from working in corporations to becoming a certified public accountant, tax attorney, or civil servant. I also hope that the students will make life-long friends at the seminar.

"High level forever," which is a Japanese translation of my surname "高久 (Takaku)," is our mantra to reach a higher level in tax studies and in our personal relationships.

Student’s Voices
Erin Takashima
Fourth-Year Student, Faculty of Business and Commerce

Everything Is Done with Passion and Zeal

The seminar supervised by Prof. Takaku centers mainly on international tax law, but our research extends beyond that. Tax is relevant in many different fields, so we also look at topics related to investment, intellectual property rights, and so on.
Every year we hold a debate session with a seminar at Waseda University, and last year, we debated on the theme, "Should we invest in Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.?" In preparation for the debate session, we conducted financial analysis of the corporation and discussed about its global strategies for about a month, and a heated debate took place on the day.
In the seminars, third-year students usually grill us with incisive questions, so fourth-year students have no time to relax. Prof. Takaku warns us not to be a kintaro-ame—a traditional Japanese cylinder-shaped candy, which, when sliced, the same picture appears on the cross section of the candy—so I work diligently with my classmates who are all full of individuality.