Taxation is a weekly magazine and website written by tax professionals for tax professionals. Taxation is taken by firms up to and including the ‘Big Four’, but our core readership is the non-specialist ‘high street’ practitioner. As a rule of thumb, if an article would be of interest to a general business magazine, it is unlikely to be of interest to us.
Articles should comprise original material and be written in accordance with our guidelines. We reserve the right to refuse publication of articles which, in the opinion of the editor, are unsuitable for the journal.
We will not normally publish material that has been published elsewhere, and you should let us know if you are writing a different article but on a similar subject for another publication.
If you are interested in writing for us for the first time, it is best to approach us by email – taxation@lexisnexis.co.uk – and provide a synopsis of the article you would like to write: about five or six bullet points. Please also let us know a deadline by which you could let us have the article, clear of all checks that you or your firm may require.
Preferably, articles should be submitted to us on a Monday because that fits in with our planning schedule. The first date the article could be published would be the Thursday ten days later, so please bear this in mind with topical articles.
If you are a regular reader of the magazine, as most of our authors are, you will be familiar with the type of articles we take. Note the difference between the first, ‘Comment’ article and the others: the former can be subjective and need not have a practical application, whereas the latter will be more technical and practical.
You may also want to consider writing a ‘Tax basics’ article, which explains an important but established point of tax to less experienced readers, or a ‘Tax by numbers’ piece which concentrates on numerical examples and case studies. Case studies, based on real experience suitably anonymised or modified, are particularly well received by readers.
Both the technical level and the style of the article should be as if you were explaining the points that you want to make to another tax professional. If the subject is complex or likely to be less well understood by our readers, an introductory paragraph ‘setting the scene’ of the issue to be discussed can help with understanding. We also like to hear the author’s ‘voice’ and personality in the articles we publish. Don’t be bland and boring.
Articles can be between 1,600 and 3,000 words long, with most being around 2,000 to 2,500. It is always good to include practical examples, which may mean the overall word count will be at the lower end of the range. Don’t feel that you have to ‘stretch’ an article to a specific word count, we can make articles fit the page.
While we accept that not everything can fit into an article of fewer than 3,000 words, don’t deliberately keep back key elements of your explanation in the hope that it will generate more enquiries – we will not publish articles like that.
Equally, do not write advertorial, pushing your firm’s expertise. It is quality and detailed writing which will generate referrals from readers. Give brief contact details at the end of the article, in this format:
Joanne Bloggs is a senior tax manager at Smith, Bloggs & Co LLP, specialising in the taxation of widget manufacturers. She can be contacted on 01234 56789 or jbloggs@smithbloggs.co.uk
We can also include a colour head and shoulders photo of the author and preferably these should be sent as a high-resolution jpeg attachment. In general, do not worry about house style, as we will edit the article. If you want to help us, we prefer:
We do not use footnotes, please incorporate anything necessary in the article. The title, introductory sentence (‘standfirst’) and subheadings are normally written by us, but feel free to make suggestions.
When you send the article to us, please send it in Word or .rtf format. There is no need to spend a lot of trouble on layout, because we will strip out all formatting during production. If there are any diagrams, please attach them as separate image files. Tables can be inserted into the document or attached as spreadsheet files.
We do not normally come back to you with the final version of the article, because changes can be made to make it fit right up to the point at which we go to press. Because we all have experience in tax practice we are careful not to make changes
that are significant.
However, we may come back to you asking for explanation or confirmation of particular points; a prompt reply is appreciated as we are on a tight timetable to produce the magazine.
It is a condition of publication in Taxation that authors grant copyright and an exclusive licence to LexisNexis. Our policy is that we do not pay for articles, but neither do we charge for publication.
Full details of our publication terms and conditions can be found on the Taxation website – www.taxation.co.uk – at our ‘Terms for authors’.
Let us know if you have any queries, otherwise submission of an article for publication will be assumed to mean acceptance of these guidelines.
Author’s use of article
We ask that articles are not republished elsewhere, including on social media and websites which aggregate content. If authors wish to publicise their article via social media/LinkedIn, we ask that they link to the Taxation website only; we can provide the URL.
Policy on advertising and ‘advertorial’
We are delighted to accept paid advertising within the journal, subject to approval from the editor. All advertising within the journal must be clearly distinguished in its design from the editorial content. Advertising can take the form of commentary, but this must be headed with an ‘Advertisement’ or ‘Promotion’ label and distinguished in design from the editorial content.
We provide commercial opportunities for partnering with Taxation; for instance, by way of joint surveys. There are also advertising opportunities in Taxation supplements, on this website and in our emails to subscribers. For further information, email jimmy.jobson@lexisnexis.co.uk.
Reporting/publicising events
We regret that Taxation does not publicise third-party events as part of its editorial coverage. We are of course happy to accept paid advertising: if you wish to publicise events by way of advertising, please email our sales manager jimmy.jobson@lexisnexis.co.uk.