Taxation At The European Court Of Human Rights

Although the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) mentions taxation only once – and in a context that, rather than conferring rights, limits their application – references to public prerogatives pertinent to taxation are present in several of the ECHR’s articles, giving rise to an implied normative framework that has influenced the tax jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Especially given the enormous impact of the famous Yukos cases, the ECtHR has made it abundantly clear that tax policies of State Signatories must be regularly stress-tested against the requirements of the Convention. This book is the first to critically analyse over 500 of the ECtHR’s important ‘tax cases’, which create a human rights code of conduct for ECHR State Signatories in matters involving taxation. Adopting a method by which relevant articles of the ECHR are each addressed by a detailed analysis of successful and non-successful tax cases flowing from it, the book provides the following invaluable knowledge base and guidance on the ECHR’s relevance to taxation: the ECHR’s legal concept ‘margin of appreciation’ and the ECtHR’s supervisory jurisdiction in taxation matters; the legal avenues to impugn tax measures on the basis of Article 1 of Protocol 1 ECHR and other Articles of the ECHR; the lines of defence hampering judicial activism in the tax arena; the concept of ‘emergency’ in tax policy; the effects of tax penalty classification and retrospectivity; the right to a fair trial in tax disputes; and the extent tax policy may hamper the right to privacy and other fundamental human rights. In its elaboration of the nexus between taxation and human rights, this book contributes a crucial element to the ongoing debate focusing on the tax-related jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. With its practice-oriented tax policy rulebook drawn from the judgments of the ECtHR, tax practitioners and in-house counsel will approach any case with full awareness of its human rights implications and constitutional consequences.

Resumen del editor: "The increasing globalization and the restructuring of the European legal framework by the Treaty of Lisbon are important factors to suggest that the traditional separation of spheres between taxation and human rights should be revisited. This book examines the issues surrounding the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the guarantee and enforcement of human rights in the area of EU (tax) law and explores the possible development and potential impact of human rights in the field of taxation in this age of global law."

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.

"During the almost fifty years in which the European Convention on Human Rights has been in force, courts in the countries of the Council of Europe have had to grapple with a number of issues relating to the application of the Convention to tax matters. A substantial number of tax cases have gone from national courts to the European Commission of Human Rights or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Locating the domestic tax courts' jurisprudence on taxation and human rights is far harder than accessing the Strasbourg jurisprudence. This issue attempts to fill that gap and contains a survey of domestic case law (and doctrinal writings) on the application of the Convention to tax matters."--Editor.

Or her tax trial

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2023 in the subject Law - Tax / Fiscal Law, University of Strasbourg (Centre for International and European Studies), course: European Tax Law, language: English, abstract: The thesis addresses the challenge to compare both the CJEU and the ECtHR case-laws dealing with issues concerning the taxpayers' procedural rights. Those courts faced the same difficulty to guarantee the European taxpayers' rights while neither the EU Founding Treaties, nor the European Convention on Human Rights include stipulations with sheer fiscal purpose. However, despite that apparent mutism, the Convention and EU law turn out today to be fundamental sources in the field of taxation. Similarly to the CJEU, who impelled the Member States to direct taxation "downward harmonisation", the ECtHR set up a constructive case-law, which unveiled fiscal perspectives over stipulations that have not been conceived originally under such conception. The thesis is focused on the contributions both European courts delivered in the field of taxpayers' procedural safeguards and investigates into the existence of a common corpus: all taxation phases are thus covered, regardless of whether it is in the stage of tax base assessment, tax liquidation or tax collection, but as well and mostly so regarding the administrative oversight and prospective sanctions that could result from. The thesis overpasses its initial scope in order to examine legal tools and reasoning patterns European justices in both courts have put in place in order to give rise to taxpayers' real procedural safeguards.

The article gives an overview of the general principles applied by the European Court of Human Rights when examining the complaints under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention of Human Rights about fiscal measures applied by the state. It emphasises the wide margin of appreciation afforded to the states in tax matters. The article further describes the test applied by the Court when analysing a tax case. It indicates particular issues that might arise in relation to separate elements of the test such as the concept of possessions, quality of fiscal laws, individual and excessive burden, retroactive legislation, austerity measures and procedural safeguards in tax proceedings.

The book deals with national sovereignty of Member States in tax matters, and the tensions created by the fact that the decisions by the European Court of Justice requires them to exercise consistently with the Community law. Contributions in the book cover a variety of critical issues, including the current and possible future effects of the internal market on the fiscal sovereignty of Member States; the limits that European law imposes on Member States' policy sovereignty in matters of international tax law; the effect of European law on taxes levied by local authorities; and the consequences the Treaty of Lisbon may have for Member States' fiscal sovereignty.