The publication online of lists of non-compliant taxpayers, or of declared and/or assessed income, is widespread in several foreign jurisdictions. Within the European Union alone, roughly half of the Member States have adopted such deterrent measures, often as part of broader reforms aimed at facilitating tax collection and combating evasion in times of financial crisis and austerity policies. “Public shaming” mechanisms rely on the reputational impact of disclosure, effectively amounting to an additional sanction (on top of administrative and/or criminal penalties) for the non-compliant taxpayer.

Digital tools, by making these lists easily accessible, amplify their reputational reach and, at least theoretically, their deterrent effectiveness. In almost all cases, the publication of such lists represents one of the few exceptions to the principle of tax secrecy, a principle grounded in the long-standing notion that only maximum confidentiality enables taxpayers to fulfil their fiscal obligations faithfully, given that such obligations often reveal personal or family details or, in the case of business activities, valuable information for competitors.

All lists of non-compliant taxpayers share broadly similar objectives: they promote transparency both with respect to citizens’ compliance with tax duties and to the outcomes, effectiveness, and pervasiveness of tax administration controls. Through mechanisms of mutual social oversight, these lists are intended to encourage voluntary tax compliance.

However, they differ widely in terms of the medium used, the duration of publication, the categories of taxpayers involved, the amount of data disclosed, the conditions for publication, and the rights of those concerned (notification, rectification, deletion, administrative and judicial review, etc.).

Starting with the subjective scope of these lists, one can distinguish between systems that involve only legal entities and those that also include individuals. The rationale for this distinction often lies precisely in the need to protect personal data. Even when individuals are included, if the State sets a high minimum threshold for evaded amounts and/or imposed penalties, the proportion of individuals appearing on the list will likely remain small. The same holds true where, instead of a list of evaders, the law provides for the publication of nominal lists of declared taxable income above a certain threshold (possibly with the indication of any upward adjustments).

As for the objective scope, the lists include economic information, identifying data of the individual or entity, and procedural annotations. Economic information may comprise the taxable base (gross or net; declared and/or assessed), the tax due, any penalties and interest, income categories, and business activities. Procedural annotations often specify whether the debt is final or still under dispute. Such information is linked to the taxpayer’s name or the entity’s denomination. Systems range from those publishing only the minimum data necessary to identify the taxpayer correctly to others disclosing apparently unnecessary (or purely statistical) information. Some States publish only once assessments become final – either due to failure to appeal or following a court decision – whereas others include debts not yet final, sometimes allowing correction or deletion if the taxpayer later prevails in court. With some exceptions, taxpayers are generally entitled to prior notification of their upcoming inclusion in the list, so that they can avoid publication by settling their debt or seek correction through administrative review. The duration of publication varies, depending on the country, from a few months to several years, with some cases of indefinite online availability. Publication is usually limited to annual debts exceeding a given threshold.

Regarding technical publication methods, the Internet has become the standard tool, enabling maximum dissemination of information at minimal economic and organizational cost. The medium’s effectiveness is amplified by search-engine indexing, which allows anyone to check instantly whether a name appears on a tax-evader list simply by typing it into a search bar.

The Internet, while fostering social oversight of tax compliance, undeniably exposes personal data to risks of misuse. Case law from supranational courts illustrates how thin the line is between mutual social control and “public shaming”: in the absence of specific limits on the accessibility or re-use of list data, Hungary’s publication of tax data, for instance, led the media to create “interactive maps of non-compliant taxpayers,” allowing users to click on map locations to view each taxpayer’s name, home address, and tax debt. Moreover, absent technical or legal restrictions on re-use, published tax data may be captured by data-scraping software profiling individuals, for instance, to assess creditworthiness.

The case law of supranational courts has not yet reached uniform conclusions on how to balance the right to personal-data protection against fiscal interests or administrative transparency. In the well-known case “L.B. v. Hungary”, the European Court of Human Rights initially held that the online publication of lists of non-compliant taxpayers reflected an appropriate balance among the right to privacy, the right of citizens to be informed, and the general economic interest in ensuring public revenue collection through widespread deterrence. However, following referral to the Grand Chamber, the Court ultimately found a violation of the right to respect for private life where such lists included, in addition to the name, tax identification number, and amount due, the residential address of natural persons (ECtHR, Fourth Section, 12 January 2021, L.B. v. Hungary, application no. 36345/16; Grand Chamber, 9 March 2023). Although it reached an opposite conclusion, the Grand Chamber confirmed the earlier decision’s reasoning: the publication of taxpayers’ personal data is not in itself problematic and falls within the State’s margin of appreciation. This conclusion was influenced by the widespread adoption of such measures across the States under the Court’s jurisdiction.

 

(Focus by Chiara Francioso)

 

Selected bibliography:

 

L. Einaudi , La pubblicità nelle imposte, in Corriere della Sera, 5 dicembre 1922, e in Cronache economiche e politiche di un trentennio (1893-1925), vol. VI, Einaudi, Torino, 1963, 977 ss.

 

P. Boria, La privacy dei contribuenti e la dichiarazione tributaria, in Riv. dir. trib., 2006, I, 190 ss.

 

G. Citarella, D. Stevanato, M. Vantaggio, R. Lupi, Divulgazione delle dichiarazioni fiscali tra basi normative, privacy e trasparenza fiscale, in Dial. trib., 2008, fasc. 4, 5 ss.

 

S. Scagliarini, La riservatezza e i suoi limiti. Sul bilanciamento di un diritto preso troppo sul serio, Aracne, Roma, 2013.

 

F. Rasi, Pubblicazione degli elenchi dei contribuenti, in A.F. Uricchio (a cura di), L’accertamento tributario, Giappichelli, Torino, 2014, 440 ss.

 

E.E. Bø, J. Slemrod, T.O. Thoresen, Taxes on the Internet: Deterrence Effects of Public Disclosure, in American Economic J., 2015, 39 ss.

 

L. Del Federico, Sanzioni proprie e sanzioni improprie, in A. Giovannini, A. Di Martino, E. Marzaduri (a cura di), Trattato di diritto sanzionatorio tributario, vol. II, Giuffrè, Milano, 2016, 1317 ss.

 

J. Hey, F. Başaran Yavaşlar (a cura di), Tax Transparency: 2018 EATLP Congress, IBFD, Amsterdam, 2019.

 

B.D. Olivares Olivares, The Impact of GDPR on European Name & Shame Tax Defaulter Lists, in Computer Law & Security Rev. - The Int’l J. of Technology Law and Practice, 2019, 244 ss.

 

S.F. Cociani, La pubblicazione in rete di un elenco di evasori fiscali, tra sanzioni improprie e privilegia fisci, in L’effettività dei diritti alla luce della giurisprudenza della Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo di Strasburgo, 30 novembre 2021 (http://diritti-cedu.unipg.it/).

 

A. Marinello, Pubblicazione di dati personali dei contribuenti e rispetto della vita privata secondo la Corte EDU: la difficile ricerca di un equilibrio tra interesse fiscale e diritto alla riservatezza, in Riv. dir. trib., 2022, IV, 12 ss.

 

C. Francioso, Pubblicazione di dati fiscali e diritto al rispetto della vita privata, in Riv. dir. fin. sc. fin., 2023, 82 ss.