Taxpayers in International Law: International Minimum Standards for the Protection of Taxpayers' Rights (International Tax 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 3 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 3 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.

Juliane Kokott holds the office of Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Luxembourg. Since October 2003, she has been responsible for over 1400 cases and has delivered more than 570 Opinions, including some 160 on taxation. The latter cases concerned issues of direct and indirect taxation, in particular VAT, as well as State aid and internal market issues.

Prior to joining the Court of Justice, Ms Kokott was Professor at the Universities of Augsburg, Heidelberg, Düsseldorf, and St Gallen. She was also Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. Ms Kokott is a graduate of the University of Bonn, Germany, the American University, Washington DC, USA, the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and Harvard Law School, USA. She is the author and co-author of a number of publications in European law, public international law, and international and European tax law (e.g. Tax Law of the European Union (2022)).

In addition, Ms Kokott has actively initiated and organised several high-level conferences and symposia. She is also Founder and Co-Chair of the Committee of International Tax Law (Taxpayers' Rights; Nexus; Enforcement of International Tax Law) of the International Law Association.

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. He is also Professor honoris causa at the Ural State Law University, Russia, Doctor honoris causa at the University of Örebro, Sweden, and Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Professor Dr Pistone is Editor-in-Chief of the World Tax Journal, the International Tax Studies, the Doctoral Series, and the Global Tax Treaty Commentaries. He is co-editor of Diritto e Pratica Tributaria Internazionale and a member of the editorial committee of many other tax law periodicals around the world.

In addition, he is Co-Director of IBFD's Observatory for the Protection of Taxpayers' Rights, Co-Chair of the Tax Committee of the International Law Association, Secretary of the Executive Board of the European Association of Tax Law Professors, Member of the Permanent Scientific Committee of the International Fiscal Association, and President of the Ius Fiscale Europaeum research centre. He is also President of the Italian Association for Latin American Tax Law and, in such capacity, member of the Board of Directors of the Latin American Institute for Tax Law.

Professor Dr Pistone has (co-)edited more than 60 books, (co-)authored 8 books, and (co-)written more than 240 articles and book chapters. His core research areas are international and European tax law.