Elements of international tax competition in state‘s tax and legal systems and criteria of their legitimacy (I)

This article concerns with typical legal provisions, that identifies level, scope and forms of state’s involvement in international tax competition, also general legal background, that empowers or, on the opposite – restricts the effects of those provisions or various administrative practices, showing that there are certain criteria, enabling to describe international tax competition not only economically – as harmful or useful, or politically – as fair or unfair, but also legally – i.e. as legal or illegal. It is clear that individual legal provisions, that makes the essence of international tax competition, rarely operates separately and functionality, effectiveness or harmfulness of every preferential tax regime have to be analyzed having in mind all relevant elements that form certain regime, however object of legitimacy test first of all is each separate legal norm. Every of those separately taken norms have to satisfy not only general but also special, i.e. applied only in certain fields of law (administrative, civil, financial, tax etc.), legal criteria for form and substance (for example, to be set and applied by competent authority, non-discriminate, be proportionate etc.), that are set by the national law. Nevertheless, if aforementioned formal requirements are quite clear, their content should be assessed not only from the perspectives of national law or general legal principles, but also in the light of state’s international obligations of different origin and legal weight