Civil actions for the collection of delinquent taxes and the tax authorities’ duty to reimburse taxpayers for surety bond or bank guarantee expenses when they lose the lawsuit

Abstract

This article aims to analyze whether tax authorities should be ordered to reimburse taxpayers for the expenses related to obtaining and maintaining surety bonds or bank guarantees when they lose civil actions for the collection of delinquent taxes. To that end, we looked into court precedents to identify not only the statutory provisions that apply to the subject matter, but mainly how such provisions have been interpreted and enforced by the courts, as well as the legal arguments used by taxpayers and tax authorities alike. The pivotal question in this discussion, as the result of our research showed, is whether or not obtaining such guarantees is optional, and this article seeks to analyze it through a systematic interpretation of positive law, as well as elements of philosophy of law. The conclusion of such analysis is that, although these types of guarantees are optional, tax authorities that lose a civil action for the collection of delinquent taxes must reimburse taxpayers for the expenses related to such guarantees.