Within the regimes of EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), this book examines taxpayers’ right to defence and the right to a fair trial in tax matters. The reach and content of the EU and the ECHR rights of the defence principles provide the basis for this examination. In criminal proceedings, these rights are the minimum guarantees of the accused, and they ensure fair trial rights as well as procedural fairness. Procedural fairness requires a coherent and predictable legal framework in national law in order to provide legal certainty to the interfering authority and the individual affected by the public interest interference. In administrative law proceedings, including in the area of tax and taxation, the rights of the defence principle similarly provides minimum guarantees that apply as rights of the defence.

Since EU Member States are party to the European Union as well as the ECHR, this book adopts a broad, European law, approach, by debating the application of the EU and the ECHR rights of the defence principles in tax matters. Exploring this issue supports the academic debate on taxpayers’ right to defence in EU Member States. The practical contribution of the book aims to support both the taxpayers’ knowledge of taxpayers’ right to defence in European law and the actual implementation of the right to a fair trial in tax matters in EU Member States’ national legal systems. The book clarifies various issues, including how article 6 of the ECHR on the right to a fair trial can support fairness in tax matters.