In the 21st century, the all-seeing God has been replaced by algorithms. They just keep running, unencumbered by a moral sense, but with an insatiable hunger for data. What started as convenience ended up as control. Shoshana Zuboff calls it surveillance capitalism: a system in which tech companies don’t just predict behaviour; they actively try to influence it. The algorithms that make this possible are like modern-day oracles: inscrutable, unverifiable and only intelligible to data scientists.

And the government? It watches eagerly as well. In taxation, digitalisation is rapidly transforming the landscape. Algorithms already decide who is being audited, when, and based on which suspicions. The aim is to limit or even eliminate the intervention of a human auditor. An invisible system that screens data, detects anomalies, and connects suspicions together in real time, that’s the future. There is hardly any transparency: the tax authorities see everything, the taxpayer nothing. We are moving towards a tax morality based on self-discipline and visibility. Not because citizens believe in the system, but because they fear the digital spotlight.

Do you think it won’t be that bad?  Think again, because 1 January 2026 will be a new milestone. Every entrepreneur in Belgium will then have to face the Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line. That may not mean much to you, but PEPPOL might ring a bell. It is a framework for the standardized exchange of electronic documents such as invoices. The network is praised for its contribution to better control, transparency and fraud prevention. Without any significant human intervention. And in real time, too. Such a revolutionary and ambitious claim deserves critical analysis.

Unfortunately, the dangers of automated risk profiling are not hypothetical. Think of the childcare benefits scandal or the SyRI algorithm debacle in the Netherlands. The common thread there is black box technology, poor accountability and citizens crushed by the system in some cases. The algorithms may seem foolproof, but they are not. And then there’s no one to hold accountable.

Without a fundamental redrawing of the rules of the game, this digital surveillance risks going off the rails. Therefore, legal and ethical benchmarks must be established. This is the only way to prevent tax audits from turning into a technocratic no-man’s-land. At least six basic principles should be enshrined in law:

1. Transparency relating to software and algorithms (source code, calculation rules);
2. Accountability and justification of decisions made based on AI;
3. Independent assessment of technology used (external audits);
4. Protection of right(s) of defence (access to data in readable form);
5. Proportionality in data processing (minimum data, maximum protection);
6. Maintenance of democratic (and not technocratic) control over implementation systems.

Digitalisation in taxation is not a problem in itself. It increases efficiency, limits fraud and speeds up processes. But without democratic control, without human scale, without ethical reflection, it becomes a new disciplinary regime. It is not God who sees us always and everywhere, but algorithms. And those algorithms pass judgements without a soul.

Quote:

“An invisible system that screens data, detects anomalies, and connects suspicions in real time, that’s the future. There is hardly any transparency: the tax authorities see everything, the taxpayer nothing.”

The author is a founding partner at Tuerlinckx Tax Lawyers.

The text is a translation from the Dutch column in Trends.