Inheritance planning – using usufructs to pass on the family home tax efficiently
How to make the best use of usufructs when making inheritance tax planning decisions.
Countries considered by Spanish tax law as tax havens
Spanish tax law contains numerous anti-tax abuse provisions that discriminate against countries that are considered to be tax havens (paraisos fiscales). It has maintained a list of such countries since 1991 and the number of countries has gradually reduced over the years as countries sign tax treaties with Spain that contain an exchange of information … Read more
COVID-19 The chaos of the legislation so far……
The Covid-19 crisis has underlined the fact that Spain does not have a single Government. It has 18, and that is the ignoring the 8.131 municipalities, which, thankfully, have limited powers to legislate. Apart from the Government of the Spanish State, Spain has 17 Autonomous Communities, some of which have ambitions to become separate countries. … Read more
Covid-19 Tax provisions to assist businesses during the crisis 20/3/2020
To date, the provisions incorporated into new tax legislation to help businesses during the Covid-19 crisis are not particularly wide-ranging. In this article we describe these in full. Postponement of tax payments available to small businesses All businesses whose sales for the year ended 31 December 2019 were less than 6.010.121,04€ have the right to … Read more
Covid-19 Declaration of the State of Alarm 14/03/2020
For many weeks we have all been observing the outbreak of this disease with a kind of detached fascination – but reality has finally struck home in Spain. With effect from 14 March, the Government declared a ‘State of Alarm’ using legislation that dates back to 1981. This allows the Administration extraordinary powers for the … Read more
Could Andalucia become a low tax region?
Can this really be true?Well, unbelievably, perhaps. One of the promises made by the right wing parties during the December 2018 elections in Andalucía was to reduce taxes. We all know that politicians like to promise to reduce taxes and increase public spending at the same time but one of the few things that the … Read more
The New Obligation of Gibraltar Financial Institutions to Provide Automatic Exchange of Tax Information to The Spanish Tax Office
As part of the recent agreements of exchange of tax information subscribed by Gibraltar for cooperation in tax matters, the Gibraltar financial institutions will be reporting to the Spanish tax office the relevant tax information of all their account holders, including income on earnings, tax withheld and tax residency status. The first reporting will take … Read more
The law in Andalucía to regulate holiday letting
A new law was passed on 3/2/2016 to force landlords in Andalucia to register properties used for holiday letting. The fines for ignoring this law are truly draconian with a minimum of 18,000€ and maximum of 150,000€. An estimated 400,000 properties in Andalucia will be affected. This law has been several years in coming and … Read more
The new international disclosure rules
More than 90 countries have now signed up to the automatic information system, including most tax havens and the other bad boys like Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and Cyprus (to name but a few!). There is now no place left to hide except places where you would have to be very brave to leave your money. … Read more
Taxing a rent free commercial property
Picture the scene: with youth unemployment in Spain currently hovering around the 50 per cent mark for under 25s (source Eurostat), you decide to give your son a helping hand by letting him set up business in an empty shop you happen to own. As he is your child and you don’t need the money, … Read more
