Zasady ochrony podatnika w prawie podatkowym

The role of taxpayer protection in the tax law seems to be particularly important due to the nature of this branch of the law, which significantly interferes with the individual freedom. Establishment of the legal safeguards aimed at balancing the taxpayer's position against the state is considered one of the main purposes of the tax law. In the Polish tax law two groups of the principles of taxpayer protection should be distinguished – the principles-taxpayers' rights and the general principles of the tax law, implementing the demand of taxpayer protection. The rights of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution and the international conventions, further specified in the tax law, should be considered the principles-taxpayers' rights. The way of clarification of these rights in the tax law on the background of their clarification in other branches of law indicates that the tax law provides less protection of the constitutional rights to individuals than those belonging to other branches of law. Specified in the literature, the general principles of the tax law, implementing the demand of taxpayer protection, should be recognized as a concretization of a principle in dubio pro tributario and a principle of certainty of the tax law, both of which protect the taxpayer in the plane of the two most sensitive areas of the tax law – the interpretation of provisions of law and their temporal validity. It seems that extensive safeguards in this area do not, however, determine practical implementation of taxpayer protection by the tax authorities.