Mr. Vazquez doctoral research was supervised by prof. dr. Dennis Weber (Universiteit van Amsterdam) and prof. dr. mr. Daniel Smit (Universiteit van Amsterdam), and co-supervised by Dr. Giorgio Beretta (Universiteit van Amsterdam).

His doctoral thesis provides a comprehensive and in-depth assessment of the proportionality of DAC7 rules for digital platforms. Adopted in early 2021, DAC7 is an EU Directive which introduced a standardized tax reporting requirement for digital platforms across the European Union. The rules included in this Directive aim to provide EU tax authorities with visibility over the income and transactions of sellers (taxpayers) operating via digital platforms. To achieve this goal, DAC7 requires third-party operators of digital platforms to systematically collect, verify, store, and report specific personal and transactional data about platform sellers to the tax authorities of the Member States. This data is then automatically exchanged between EU tax authorities.

While DAC7 rules for digital platforms pursue a worthy goal (e.g., enhancing tax transparency, combating tax evasion, etc.) which, at first glance, would justify a public intrusion into the private sphere of both platform sellers and third-party platform operators, a key question that arises is whether such intrusion does not exceed what is necessary in the public interest. This essentially concerns a matter of ‘means’ and ‘ends’ or, in other words, of proportionality.

Mr. Vazquez PhD thesis addresses this important question. More specifically, it analyses whether DAC7 rules for digital platforms are consistent with the EU general principle of proportionality from both a policy and a legal perspective and, if this is not the case, what improvements could be introduced to ensure such consistency.