Articles

Direct Government Finance for Small Businesses

The Spanish Government has enabled its ICO (Instituto de Crédito Oficial) to grant loans of up to 200.000 € directly to small businesses, bypassing the high street banks. The question is will a Government department do any better at providing financial help to small businesses than a typical bank? We shall see… The Royal Decree-Law … Read more

Marbella – The New Urban Plan is Published

After many years of negotiation between the Marbella town hall and the provincial planning authorities the newly approved PGOU was finally published on 20 May 2010. This final step completes the long and controversial process for the approval of the municipal urban plan. Marbella has the distinction of being the first of the large towns … Read more

Possible Revolutionary New VAT Law for Small Businesses

There is a new proposal for a substantial change in VAT law that will allow small scale self employed businesses and companies to pay VAT on their real sales income. All the political parties have backed a proposed change in law to modify the current VAT law for smaller self employed businesses and companies, so … Read more

Important Change in Spanish Tax Law for Non Resident Property Owners

From 1 January 2010, EU residents (whether individuals or companies) who rent their Spanish properties will pay 24% tax on the net rental income, instead of 24% tax on the gross rental income. On 1 March 2010 the Spanish Government approved Law 2/2010, which includes a substantial change in the taxation of European Union (EU) … Read more

Tax Office Fights Against Tax Evasion

The Spanish Government intends to approve a number of changes in legislation to strengthen the tax office’s armoury against the black economy and tax fraud. They propose to modify the Penal Code so that substantial tax fraud may be penalised with up to 6 years (currently four years) in jail. In the Spanish system ‘substantial … Read more

Latest Economic and Unemployment Crisis Proposals

The Spanish Government, currently the PSOE which is the main centre left party, announced on 1 March 2010 a number of proposals to stimulate the creation of employment and the economy in general. The main proposal is to incentivise property refurbishment which the Government believes will create 350.000 new jobs. Official figures show current unemployment … Read more

OECD Says: Gibraltar is Now White!

Since the publication of the ‘grey list’ by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in April 2009, the number of countries included on the list has decreased from 35 to 16. 19 countries have signed at least 12 different agreements of exchange of fiscal information with different countries. The signing of these agreements … Read more