Secondary tax liability: In dubio contra reum

Secondary tax liability in domestic law is designed as a mechanism for combating both lawful and unlawful tax evasion by expanding fiscal responsibility to individuals who are not primary taxpayers. The application o f this legal institute reveals a tendency toward the functional convergence o f tax law with repressive models characteristic o f criminal law. This is particularly evident in the introduction o f a subjective element, forms o f culpability, as a prerequisite for establishing secondary liability, which represents a key distinction from classical instruments used to secure tax collection. Such a statutory construction inevitably raises questions regarding the legal nature o f the norm itself: whether it constitutes an administrative law instrument with repressive effects or a criminal law measure disguised in tax form. The central hypothesis o f this paper arises from a perceived conflict between secondary liability as a tax policy measure aimed at eliminating moral hazard o f taxpayers, on the one hand, and the consistent application o f the principle o f legal certainty, on the other.