Exchange of tax information: Privacy and Confidentiality concerns

税务信息交换：隐私和保密问题

• 批准号: 2268549
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2268549
• 关键词: Exchange; tax; information; Privacy; Confidentiality

The main research question is whether taxpayers' personal data are adequately protected when exchanged between national tax authorities. Are taxpayers being given sufficient opportunities to participate in the EoI process? Do the confidentiality standards provided by various states to the information received protect taxpayers sufficiently? These questions are fundamental given that nowadays EoI is the leading policy response to combat tax avoidance and evasion. These two phenomena have risen to the very top of the international political agenda; this is partially due to the recent tax related data leaks which revealed that the world's wealthy elite continue to evade taxes, but also because of the great inequality that these phenomena have contributed to particularly as offshore tax evasion is highly concentrated among the rich. For these reasons, both the international and European community have focused on further promoting EoI. EoI is also based on technological developments, in the sense that it is due to technological applications that information about taxpayers is being collected, stored and exchanged and thus big data gradually become the tool used to create transparency. However, these developments were not accompanied by actions to protect taxpayers' personal data. Tax data are personal data and thus taxpayers should be granted some procedural rights, i.e the right to know about the exchange, have access to the data and be able to object to the exchange. Otherwise they will not be able to control whether the exchange takes place in line with the requirements provided by the law (e.g. is the information exchanged foreseeable relevant for the purpose of the exchange, or do they contain trade secrets etc.). Also, information being exchanged should be vested with some minimum confidentiality standards. If not, the data exchanged may be accessed by a large number of authorities, be published, and used for unauthorized purposes. They can also be leaked to the public because of lack of infrastructure, e.g. developing countries, or because of the predominance of other national aims which lead other national authorities to gain unauthorized access to this confidential information, e.g. US for reasons of national security. The problem is that none of the legal instruments regulating EoI provide for specific procedural rights or confidentiality standards but it is left to each state to decide individually the level of protection they consider appropriate. Thus, important differences can be found between states' national laws which may not only interfere with taxpayers' rights but they may also affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the exchange process as states may refuse to exchange data when they regard the level of protection offered by the other jurisdiction as inadequate. Tracing these differences will enable me understand the different ways in which states conceptualize the substantive right to privacy in tax cases (compared to non-tax ones).The first step, hence, is to compare some key states' national laws and practices with regard to procedural rights and confidentiality standards and try to draw some conclusions on whether they favor effectiveness or privacy. Main source of information will be the Reports published by the Global Forum of Transparency and Information Exchange and the focus will be on EU member states and some third countries with which the EU has signed agreements for exchange of information e.g. US, Switzerland, Monaco, San Marino, and Andorra. This is the first attempt to make use of the data gathered by the Global Forum, as well as the first attempt to see the development of Member States' national regimes and practices throughout the years and how they are affected by the international pressure to promote tax transparency. The second step will be to interrogate into the compatibility of these regimes with EU law, and more specifically with the right of defense and the right to ...

主要的研究问题是，纳税人的个人数据在国家税务当局之间交换时是否得到充分保护。纳税人是否有足够的机会参与EoI流程？各州对收到的信息提供的保密标准是否足以保护纳税人？这些问题是根本性的，因为如今EoI是打击避税和逃税的主要政策反应。这两种现象已经上升到国际政治议程的最高点;这部分是由于最近的税务相关数据泄露，显示世界上富有的精英继续逃税，但也因为这些现象造成了巨大的不平等，特别是离岸逃税高度集中在富人中。基于这些原因，国际社会和欧洲社会都把重点放在进一步促进信息交换上。EoI也基于技术发展，因为正是由于技术应用，有关纳税人的信息正在被收集，存储和交换，因此大数据逐渐成为用于创建透明度的工具。然而，这些发展并没有伴随着保护纳税人个人数据的行动。税务数据属于个人数据，应赋予纳税人一定的程序性权利，即知情权、查阅权和反对权。否则，他们将无法控制交换是否符合法律规定的要求（例如，交换的信息是否可预见地与交换的目的有关，或者是否包含商业秘密等）。此外，所交换的信息应符合某些最低限度的保密标准。否则，所交换的数据可能会被许多当局访问、发布和用于未经授权的目的。它们也可能由于缺乏基础设施而泄露给公众，例如发展中国家，或者由于其他国家目标占主导地位，导致其他国家当局未经授权访问这些机密信息，例如美国出于国家安全的原因。问题是，没有一项关于信息交换的法律的文书规定具体的程序权利或保密标准，而是由每个国家自行决定它们认为适当的保护程度。因此，各国的国内法之间存在重大差异，不仅可能干涉纳税人的权利，而且可能影响交换过程的效力和效率，因为各国在认为另一管辖区提供的保护程度不够时，可能会拒绝交换数据。通过对这些差异的分析，可以了解各国在税收领域（与非税收领域相比）对实体隐私权的不同理解。因此，首先，比较各国在程序性权利和保密标准方面的法律和实践，并试图得出它们是倾向于有效性还是倾向于隐私性的结论。信息的主要来源将是全球透明度和信息交流论坛发布的报告，重点将是欧盟成员国和与欧盟签署了信息交流协议的一些第三国，如美国、瑞士、摩纳哥、圣马力诺和安道尔。这是第一次尝试利用全球论坛收集的数据，也是第一次尝试了解会员国多年来国家制度和做法的发展情况，以及它们如何受到促进税收透明度的国际压力的影响。第二步将是询问这些制度与欧盟法律的兼容性，更具体地说，与国防权和...