Taxpayers in International Law

This ground-breaking book brings clarity to the dynamically developing field of international tax law. It empowers individuals and corporate taxpayers to navigate their way around and helps tax authorities take taxpayers’ rights into account from the beginning. The book is the result of several years of research conducted with the support of the International Law Association.

Taxpayers in International Law puts taxpayers’ rights on the global international tax agenda as the necessary counterweight and complement to Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). Importantly, it pleads for a global minimum standard of legal protection of the fundamental rights of taxpayers and extracts the content of such rights from relevant constitutional principles of many countries around the world.

The book is structured in three parts: Part I focusses on the legal sources and on the relations between taxation and international human rights law. Part II identifies general principles and specific taxpayers’ rights, groups them into three categories (procedural, related to sanctions, and substantive), and analyses the different implications that arise in each of them. Part III features concrete proposals for establishing a global framework for the protection of taxpayers’ rights, including guidelines for tax authorities.

The book is a unique instrument for the daily work of practitioners and international tax scholars interested in securing the protection of taxpayer’s fundamental rights, as well as for those involved in tax collection worldwide. Taxpayers can refer to the book to find out which rulings and concepts can help them enforce their rights; tax authorities and judges can use the book to verify which rights have to be respected.

Prof Dr Dr Dr h.c. Juliane Kokott holds the office of Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Luxembourg. Prior to joining the Court of Justice, Ms Kokott was professor at the Universities of Augsburg, Heidelberg, Düsseldorf, and St Gallen. Prof Dr Pasquale Pistone is academic chairman of IBFD, the Netherlands, full professor of tax law at the University of Salerno, Italy, and holds a Jean Monnet ad Personam Chair in European Tax Law and Policy at WU Vienna, Austria.