El derecho a la intimidad de los contribuyentes frente a la facultad de información de la administración tributaria

Abstract

Taxpayers, being passive subjects of the legal tax relationship, are obliged to contribute to the Ecuadorian State regulations; contribution that finds a major effectiveness in the right that the tax administration has to receive information. However, that right finds its limitation in the known right to privacy that the taxpayer owns. For a better understanding, we will begin exposing the concepts of different doctrinaires, both of the right to privacy and of the right to information; as well as of the way in which the Spanish legislation and part of the Latin American legislation, protect these rights. Besides, we will expose the legal protection of the privacy and information offered by Ecuadorian legal system. We will focus on the issue of the constitutional tax law with the purpose of acquiring a broader and concrete knowledge of the fundamental rights to study; will also analyze the constitutional legal figure of “habeas data”, as the ideal resource that Ecuador offers its contributors for defenders their right to privacy. On the other hand, we will analyze carefully, according to the Tax Code, the capacity that the Tax Administration has for obtaining and registering their taxpayers data. We will present the different theories about the prevalence of the right to privacy on the right to information and vice versa, as well as the theory of the weighting of rights. Finally, we will analyze the importance of these rights for each of the parts.