IBFD provides feedback on European Commission’s Public Consultation on Taxpayers’ Rights in the EU
In response to the European Commission’s recently publication “Public Consultation on Taxpayers’ Rights in the EU”, academic members at IBFD got together and worked intensively to provide feedback.
The European Commission had previously published Roadmaps for the Communication on Taxpayers’ Rights in the Single Market (“Ares(2020)6140226 - 30/10/2020”) and the Recommendation to Improve the Situation of Taxpayers in the Single Market (Ref. Ares(2020) Ares(2020) 6140272 - 30/10/2020), both in the context of the European Commission's Communication for fair and simple taxation supporting the recovery strategy of 15 July 2020.
Firstly, the response to the European Commission aims to draw the European Commission’s attention to the Observatory on the Protection of Taxpayers’ Rights (OPTR) as an initiative for non-judgmental monitoring of global trends in the practical protection of taxpayers’ rights, whose results may be useful to the European Commission in this context. Secondly, IBFD’s report provides some examples of areas identifying where there is a stronger need to provide a restatement of taxpayers’ fundamental rights within the domain of EU law, by setting guidelines and best practices.
IBFD believes that the issuing of soft law could provide useful clarification and promote a form of minimum standard setting for basic taxpayers’ fundamental rights. The feedback was submitted on 27 November 2020.