A woman known only as Jenny, represented by Mishcon de Reya, a British law firm, is trying to raise £50,000 ($62,000) on a crowdfunding site to challenge the right of HMRC, Britain’s tax authority, to pass her information on to America’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Jenny, a university researcher born in America but resident in Britain for nearly 20 years, claims the transfer breaches her rights under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation of 2016. She argues that her information is irrelevant to fatca’s objective—to catch tax evaders—because she earns less than $104,000 and thus qualifies for an income-tax exemption under American rules.
Mr Noseda sees Jenny’s claim as an important test case which, if successful, could spawn others. Another client of Mishcon de Reya has complained to Britain’s data-protection regulator about HMRC’s data-sharing under the CRS. The law firm has also been instructed by a European company to look at ways of challenging national public registers of corporate ownership. With registers “it’s the same argument but more so, since the information is shared not just with tax authorities, but everyone,” says Mr Noseda.
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