Protection Of Taxpayers

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Law - Tax / Fiscal Law, grade: 9 Punkte, Maastricht University (Faculty of Law), language: English, abstract: Taxpayers are obliged to file their annual returns which the state needs to fund its expenses for society. By doing so, sensitive and personal information are disclosed to the respective tax administration. Inevitably, the issue of disclosing relevant information arises as well as the question of how to treat the information without harming the basic rights of an individual taxpayer. This thesis contributes to the issue of disclosing tax related information by focusing on tax confidentiality, its development and status, the current legal framework, and the rationale behind the approaches of tax confidentiality, undertaken by different legal systems. More specific, this thesis incorporates a comparison between the jurisdictions of Germany and the United States, examining their national legislative rules on tax confidentiality. By elaborating upon the similarities, differences, and the rationale of tax confidentiality in both systems, the thesis will uncover the fact, that both, Germany and the U.S. have a high level of confidentiality. There exist, however, interesting differences related to the level of confidentiality, and this thesis will conclude that the German system has a higher level of confidentiality, for instance in relation to the exceptions to tax confidentiality.

This report provides a detailed description and analysis of the different legal provisions in twenty-two OECD countries relating to taxpayers' rights and the compliance powers of tax authorities. The accompanying tables present a comparison of country practices in 1989 and identify major reforms introduced in recent years.

In the last decade, there have been major developments in the areas of the exchange of tax information and data protection. Technological developments have facilitated the processing of personal data and led to more efficient tax administration and tax enforcement, as well as a substantial increase in the volume of personal data processing. 0This book provides a comprehensive overview of the main developments, as well as the structure and content of the various instruments for exchange of information. In particular, the exchange of information under double taxation treaties, TIEAs, the CoE/OECD Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and EU directives is addressed. The scope and procedure of recently adopted automatic exchange of financial account information, tax rulings and CbC reporting are laid down in a detailed manner.

This report is the ninth edition of the OECD's Tax Administration Series. It provides internationally comparative data on aspects of tax systems and their administration in 59 advanced and emerging economies.

The book focuses on the protection afforded to taxpayers by the European Convention on Human Rights. It discusses the procedural guarantees of Article 6 of the Convention and the substantive rights guaranteed to taxpayers by Article 1 of Protocol no. 1 to the Convention (protection of property) and Article 14 of the Convention (prohibition of discrimination). These rights and guarantees are analysed through the prism of wide margin of appreciation afforded to the States in designing and implementing their tax policies.