The meaning of certain normative acts is often built in the everyday life, over time, in a particular historical context well placed, in a diffuse and distributed way among social actors, without a centralized instance of decision that states the “official meaning” of law or any other normative act. A similar situation takes place in the context of taxation, in which the meaning of the norm is often determined by repeated practices of the administrative authorities, i.e., many taxpaying citizens base their decisions upon how the Public Administration stands on specific issue. Thus, although there is no legislative act that disciplines the position of the tax authorities, it is possible to determine the legal criteria it uses, precisely because there is a (communicative) relationship between taxpaying citizens and tax authorities. However, oftenly many taxpaying citizens are struck by a sudden change of “sedimented position” of the tax authorities. In this way, a necessary reflection arises: could the effects of this legal criteria change go backwards? Can the tax administration retroactively demand taxes when it didn’t consider them due in those terms? The meaning of the norm can only be set by centralized decision-making instances, or is it also defined based on the repeated practices of social actors? It is based on those questionings, relating time with law, that this research aims to establish certain interpretative parameters concerned for safeguarding the rights of those who made their decisions based on a “legit” consider criteria and, at the same time, for strengthening tax administration, from democratic foundations.
Tax law; fiscal practice; new legal standard; retroactivity; enforceability