Abstract

The levying of taxes is essential to fund the activities of a state and is therefore re- garded as a matter directly affecting the general interest of a community. However, it also directly touches upon the private sphere of taxpayers, producing an impact on their property and basic rights. From a tax policy perspective, a general trend may be seen across tax systems, namely the fact that a broad framework of cooper- ation between taxpayers and the tax authorities preserves the effective levying of taxes without harming basic rights of taxpayers - two otherwise conflicting inter- ests. Our work focuses on areas where frictions arise between taxpayers and the tax authorities as to how such cooperation is concretely implemented. In particular, the emphasis is put on the right to preserve confidentiality in the treatment of tax- relevant information in a way that does not harm the effective levying of taxes.