Tacit Approval and the Final Vestige of the Assessment’s Protective Function

Abstract

This article examines the protective function of tax assessment and how this function appears to have been abandoned in the current self-assessment system, which privatizes tax management and allows the taxpayer to establish the tax collection themselves. The study demonstrates the incompatibility between the National Tax Code and the prevailing understanding in case law, legislation, and national doctrine that tax assessment is dispensable and eventual. It highlights the detriments of the lack of material stabilization and limitation of the tax claim. After analyzing the distinctions between “tax obligation” and “tax credit”, and the exclusive competence of the administrative authority to establish the tax collection, the article criticizes current jurisprudence and legislative practice, emphasizing the detriments to the taxpayer. The conclusion underscores that the absence of express homologation leaves the taxpayer vulnerable, yet finds in tacit homologation the last vestige of material stabilization, essential to concluding the self-assessment procedure and fixing the legal criteria adopted by the taxpayer.