Data Protection and Taxpayers’ Rights: Challenges created by Automatic Exchange of Information

This book examines the scope of exchange of information and the design of exchange of information provisions in relation to EU data protection requirements and guarantees.

Why this book?

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. This 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.

In the area of data protection, the General Data Protection Regulation was adopted in 2016 and entered into force on 25 May 2018. It replaces the Data Protection Directive and further harmonizes data protection in the European Union. What is more, the ECJ has stressed the importance of data protection in some high-profile cases. This book examines the most important existing data protection guarantees in the European Union. The analyses in this book of article 8 of the ECHR, article 8 of the CFR, the DPD and the GDPR focus on the level of data protection and the specific guarantees recognized by the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular those aspects that could be critical when it comes to the exchange of information in tax matters.

We can observe an expansion of both data protection and the exchange of information. These two fields of law, however, are not always easy to align with each other. This book analyses whether the scope of exchange of information is in line with the data protection requirements in the European Union and how exchange of information provisions have to be designed in order to be compliant with EU data protection guarantees.