Furniss v Dawson [1983] UKHL 4 is an important House of Lords case in the field of UK tax that extended the applicability of The Ramsay Principle.

The judgement can be viewed as a battle between: two conflicting ideas which could, at their extremes, be expressed as: Lord Brightman came down firmly in favour of an extension of the Ramsay Principle.

), by finding for the Dawsons and favouring the Westminster rule, had wrongly limited the Ramsay Principle (as it had been expressed by Lord Diplock in a case called IRC v. Burmah Oil Co. Ltd.).

's] judgment was to change Lord Diplock's formulation from "a pre-ordained series of transactions ... into which there are inserted steps that have no commercial purpose apart from the avoidance of a liability to tax" to "a pre-ordained series of transactions ... into which there are inserted steps that have no enduring legal consequences."

That would confine the Ramsay principle to so-called self-cancelling transactions.Oliver L. J. had given considerable weight to the fact that the existence of Greenjacket Investments Ltd. was real and had enduring consequences.