The Transfer of Personal Data Between EU and Japan: Protection of Taxpayers’ Rights Concerns

The goal of this analysis is the main issues arising data transfers in direct tax matters between EU and Japan. In recent years, international efforts have been made to tackle cross-border tax avoidance and evasion, particularly the exchange of information—personal data—between tax administrations is crucial. Under the automatic information exchange system, large amounts of data (big data) are collected and transferred indiscriminately. On the one hand, this may violate taxpayers’ rights to the protection their personal data, on the other hand, big data can be useful in identifying cases where there is a high risk of tax avoidance and evasion. This indicates that there are concerns that the right to data protection may be undermined in the case of automatic information exchange.