The fiscal pillory

Every year, like a perfectly calculated ritual, the Tax Agency publishes its list of defaulters. A list of names and surnames—many of them celebrities, businessmen, athletes, or actors—who owe the tax authorities money. The headlines are full-page: who owes the most, who is repeating their debts, who is rising and who is falling in this peculiar ranking of shame.

I don't agree with this practice. I'll be blunt: tax debt is, in essence, private information. A person having a dispute with the Treasury shouldn't be a cause for public ridicule. It's quite another matter to have lists of defaulters that a company can access from time to time if it needs to assess the risk of staking an invoice. That's legitimate and makes economic sense. But publishing lists with names, numbers, and archive photos is quite another matter: it's a form of pressure.

Furthermore, let's not forget that many of these debts may not be final in the strictest sense. They may be under appeal, and they may be part of long and complex legal proceedings. But in the meantime, the name has already appeared in every media outlet, and the label of "delinquent" has already been attached to the person. The presumption of innocence is blurred, and the damage to reputation, in many cases, is irreversible.

In other European countries, this massive public exposure is not as common. In France and Germany, for example, information about debtors with the Treasury is handled much more discreetly and is limited to internal processes or specific notifications for interested creditors. Turning tax collection into a media spectacle is more typical of societies that confuse transparency with morbidity and seek to reinforce tax fears with headlines.

I find it very revealing that this list always appears just as the income tax season ends. A subtle but powerful reminder: pay on time, or you'll end up in the media spotlight. Tax pressure understood as a spectacle.

I'm not defending those who knowingly and repeatedly commit fraud. They should be pursued, sanctioned, and, if appropriate, seized. But from there to making tax debt a mass-market news item, there's a leap I don't agree with. Not every debt is fraud, nor is every debtor a scoundrel.

Privacy, including in tax matters, should be protected. Public lists of defaulters are an old practice of social lynching disguised as transparency. And no, transparency doesn't mean ripping people's lives open for entertainment.

If the State needs to collect, let it collect. Let it seize. Let it sanction. But let it not make a spectacle of itself. Let it leave the pillory in the history books.