Balancing Tax Authority Powers Privacy In A Globalized Digital Era
- IJLLR Journal
- Dec 18, 2025
- 2 min read
Vedika Agarwal, Symbiosis Law School Pune
Taranjeet Singh, Symbiosis Law School Pune
ABSTRACT
Over the years, tax administration has been excessively changed by the increased technology usage of economies around the world, which led to the giving of fresh powers to tax authorities of India that have reached deep into people’s virtual digital domains. India showed this evolution through the Income Tax Bill 2025, which allowed tax authorities to have far-reaching access to electronic records of taxpayers, cloud accounts and as deep as in their private communications, like WhatsApp chats, during search seizure operations. Measures like these allegedly restrict advanced tax evasion, extending the investigation net to the speed of modern financial crimes, but which still provoke serious concerns about the invasion of privacy rights and raise concerns of extensive state monitoring.
This Paper starts with a thorough legal comparison of the tax authority's access to digital space as a consequence of an increase in their powers, with the Indian situation being the main concern, but taking the example of Kenya, other places that have managed the balance between the tax collector and the taxpayer's privacy through different regulatory strategies. The main research question is: What are the measures state can take to balance tax authorities have the necessary powers for enforcement and maintaining strong individual privacy constitutional rights? This study looks closely on the legal frame work of the 2025 Indian income tax bill, mainly about the protection and scope related to digital data access. it also checks how this bill connects with data protection laws like the digital personal data protection act 2023. Besides that, it tries to see if the current or planned system in India really matches the international standards of proportionality, due process and judicial supervision, which is shown by law changes in Kenya and other countries too.
