Human Rights as Supranational Limits to Tax Law. A European Contribute to the Mediterranean Area.

This book is the first attempt ever made by a group of Mediterranean Tax researchers to get together and discuss on general principles on taxation law concerning their countries, or of some specific aspects of taxation that are of peculiar relevance in their legal framework, and it's the collection of papers presented and discussed during the 2009 edition of the Mediterranean Research Meeting, organized by the European University Institute, Robert Schumann Center for Advanced Studies. The objective of the seminar was to assess, in a comparative approach, the Constitutional and supranational limits to taxation in states around the Mediterranean sea (and in nearby Countries as well): to evaluate and compare the impact of fundamental principles and rights on the taxing power of the Sovereign States. Peculiar attention was given to EU law for European countries, Religious laws for some of the Arab countries and to the Human rights recognized and implemented by the UN. The EU has recently introduced new limits to tax that however are not related to a social dimension but rather to market-economic approach. At the same time, it could be argued that the situation in other Mediterranean countries is different, being less concerned with ability to pay and redistributive issues. Hence, the first goal of the seminar is to study, in a comparative approach, the possible limitations on the state’s taxing power the participants observe today and what others will be developed in the coming future