Court case 15 K 118/20 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2021)

The data subject requested information on all data processed by the tax office, invoking Article 15 GDPR, in particular a complete colour copy of the tax files including all side files and the internal comments on all data processed by the tax office. The data subject accused the tax office of file manipulation as well as "recording false data". The tax office provided the data subject with copies of all current tax assessments, a printout of the tax collection account, as well as a basic data overview and an overview of the electronic record. It refused to provide further information. At the hearing, the tax office submitted extensive further printouts from its databases, but still refused to provide information on any assessment-related data, tax audits and risk management system data and, in particular, a copy of the tax files. The court had to decide whether tax offices are obliged to grant full access to tax files under Article 15(1) GDPR. The Tax Court of Munich (Finanzgericht München - FG München) held that by handing over the additional copies of its databases at the court hearing, the tax office fulfilled its duty under Article 15(1) GDPR. The data subject was not entitled to further disclosure. On the applicability of the GDPR: The court determined that the GDPR and the data protection provisions of the German General Tax Code (AO) are applicable to the processing of personal data by tax offices. By referring to its previous decision (FG München 15 K 81/20) the court confirmed that the area of direct taxation is not excluded from the scope of the GDPR under Article 2(2)(a) GDPR. Furthermore, the court extensively discussed the material scope of application according to Article 2(1) GDPR. At first, it referred to the decisions of the CJEU in C-434/16 and C-141/12+C-372/12 to establish that only legal evaluations do not constitute personal data but all other content referring to the fiscal situation of the data subjects does. This includes all assessm