Exchange of tax information: Privacy and Confidentiality concerns

主要的研究问题是，纳税人的个人数据在各国税务机关之间交换时是否得到了充分的保护。纳税人是否有足够的机会参与EOI过程？各州为收到的信息提供的保密标准是否充分保护了纳税人？鉴于目前EOI是打击避税和逃税的主要政策回应，这些问题是根本的。这两个现象已经上升到国际政治议程的首要位置；这部分是因为最近与税收有关的数据泄露，这些数据揭示了世界上富有的精英阶层继续逃税，但也是因为这些现象造成了巨大的不平等，特别是在离岸逃税高度集中在富人身上的情况下。出于这些原因，国际和欧洲社会都将重点放在了进一步推动EOI上。EOI也是以技术发展为基础的，因为正是由于技术应用，有关纳税人的信息才被收集、存储和交换，因此大数据逐渐成为创造透明度的工具。然而，这些发展并没有伴随着保护纳税人个人数据的行动。税收数据是个人数据，因此应赋予纳税人一些程序性权利，即了解交换的权利、访问数据的权利和反对交换的权利。否则，它们将无法控制交换是否按照法律规定的要求进行(例如，可预见的交换的信息是否与交换的目的相关，或者它们是否包含商业秘密等)。此外，交换的信息应该具有一些最低保密标准。否则，交换的数据可能会被大量权威机构访问、发布并用于未经授权的目的。它们也可能因为缺乏基础设施而泄露给公众，例如发展中国家，或者因为其他国家目标的主导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，规范EOI的法律文书都没有规定具体的程序性权利或保密标准，但由每个国家单独决定其认为适当的保护水平。因此，可以发现各州的国家法律之间存在重要差异，这些法律不仅可能干预纳税人的权利，而且还可能影响交换过程的效力和效率，因为当各国认为其他管辖区提供的保护水平不足时，它们可能会拒绝交换数据。追踪这些差异将使我能够理解各国在税收案件中对实体隐私权的不同概念(与非税收案件相比)。因此，第一步是比较一些关键国家在程序性权利和保密标准方面的国家法律和做法，并试图得出一些结论，说明它们是偏向有效性还是偏向隐私。信息的主要来源将是全球透明和信息交流论坛发布的报告，重点将是欧盟成员国和欧盟与其签署信息交换协议的一些第三国，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，也是第一次尝试看到成员国多年来国家制度和做法的发展，以及它们如何受到促进税务透明度的国际压力的影响。第二步将是审问这些制度是否符合欧盟法律，更具体地说是与防卫权和……

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 ...