The following questions were put to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) by the Czech Supreme Administrative Court on 4 June 2012 relating to taxpayer rights in respect of a request for information.

The European Court of Justice determined that EU law as it concerns mutual assistance does not confer on the taxpayer any right to be informed of a request for assistance from another member state, especially if this is done to verify the information in that taxpayer’s tax return. The taxpayer does not have the right to take part in formulating the request to the other member state or to take part in examination of witnesses in the other member state.

The directive on mutual assistance does not govern the question of circumstances in which the taxpayer may question the methods used or accuracy of information obtained by the other member state and there is no obligation in relation to the amount of information that may be communicated by the other member state.