A Hearing in the Tax Proceeding Appeal – Interpretation of the Rules by the Tax Authorities
Published Online: Aug 27, 2013
Page range: 63 - 76
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/slgr-2013-0014
This content is open access.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the powers of tax appeal authorities and their interpretation of the Tax Ordinance Act governing tax hearings.
The tax hearing is part of the tax appeal proceeding and takes place within an additional procedure to supplement the evidence and materials on the case. This means that article 229 of Tax Ordinance Act is the limit of the hearing conducted by the tax body. Tax trial/hearing should be treated as a form of activity in gathering evidence, which operates next to the cabinet proceedings. In the literature, the current forms were considered to be equivalent.
The decision to perform additional procedures to supplement the evidence and materials should always be on that tax appeal authority. The phrase “can perform” should be interpreted by the authority as an obligation to conduct, at least as an order to make a positive or negative assessment of the need for additional evidence.
In the Author’s opinion, there are no objections to carry out certain types of evidence. The appeal tax authority is recognizing the case de novo and is evaluating the facts in a way it is required to assess the completeness of the collected evidence, and the same to determine whether all of the facts have been proven.
The limits of the powers of the tax appeal authority to conduct current investigation determines the content of articles 229 and 233 § 2 of Tax Ordinance Act. The competence of the appeal body, which is not subject to challenge, is to complement the evidence to draw additional conclusions, but not to change the basic findings. It may hear witnesses, appoint experts and confront their opinions, carry out documentary evidence, as necessary to carry out a visual inspection, provided that these activities are within the limits of additional evidence and conduct supplementary materials in the case. All of this evidence can be carried out during the tax hearing ordered by the tax appeal authority.