Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 29th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG9: The Rule of Law & Public Administration (Physical) Author(s) Anže Dobelšek University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia Polonca Kovač, PhD, professor, Anže Dobelšek, PhD student, Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana Title Advance Rulings as a Tax Transparency Tool: Trends from the EU to Slovenia File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Anže Dobelšek Abstract Tax transparency is a growing concept, incorporating legal, economic, IT related, administrative and similar dimensions. Consequently, various legal and other tools emerge in individual countries and the European Union (EU) alike, to enhance transparency as such but more importantly also lawfulness, efficiency and accountability in the taxation system. Nevertheless, law enforcement must contribute to these goals or an implementation gap is occurring. In this context, the main aim of the paper is to examine the theoretical framework, normative grounds at the EU and national scales in Slovenia, as well as empirical data about one of the most promising tax transparency instruments, i.e. (binding) advance ruling. Advance ruling is an act issued by tax authority to define the future tax obligation should an individual taxpayer execute a planned taxable activity. It represents a form of a guarantee act, which is usually a mixed type according to traditional administrative-legal acts in central Europe. However, the analyses’ results show that this tool is highly underemployed compared to its potentials and as characteristic for Western countries, hence the authors call for a more debureaucratised approach to its usage in Eastern Europe as well, also in a anonymised form for any taxpayer dealing with an equal activity.
