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Practical Income Manual 2021.

4. Special case: "Unit Linked" (life insurance contracts in which the policyholder assumes the investment risk)

Regulations: Art.14.2. h) of Law Personal Income Tax

"unit linked" are life insurance policies in which the policyholder can decide and modify the financial assets in which they wish to materialize the technical provisions corresponding to their insurance, assuming the risk of the investment.

Taxation

Depending on whether or not these insurance contracts meet the conditions indicated below, two different tax regimes may apply to them:

a) If the insurance contract meets any of the conditions legally established for this purpose throughout the term of the contract: The applicable tax regime is that of life insurance contracts set out in the previous sections within " Income from capitalization operations and life or disability insurance contracts ", without The transfers made between the assets suitable for materializing the investments have any tax relevance.

b) If the insurance contract does not comply with the conditions legally established for this purpose throughout the term of the contract: the policyholder must allocate in each tax period as return on capital the difference between the net asset value of the assets assigned to the policy at the end and at the beginning of the period tax .

In this case, the imputed amount will reduce the performance derived from the receipt of amounts from these contracts.

Legal conditions that must be met throughout the life of the contract for the general regime of life insurance contracts to be applicable:

Attention : with effects from on July 11, 2021, section 1 of the third article of Law 11/2021, of July 9, on measures to prevent and combat tax fraud, transposing the Directive ( EU ) 2016/1164, of the Council, of July 12, 2016, establishing rules against tax avoidance practices that directly affect the functioning of the internal market, modifying various tax and regulatory rules of the game, adapts the requirements in Personal Income Tax to the latest regulatory modifications applicable to insurance entities.

1. That the policyholder is not granted the power to modify the investments affected by the policy.

2. That the mathematical provisions are invested in:

  1. Shares or participations in collective investment institutions, predetermined in the contracts, provided that:

    • These are collective investment institutions adapted to Law 35/2003, of November 4, on Collective Investment Institutions ( BOE of 5).

    • These are collective investment institutions covered by Directive 2009/65/ EC , of July 13, of the European Parliament and of the Council.

  2. Sets of assets reflected separately in the balance sheet of the insurance entity, provided that the following requirements are met:

    • The determination of the assets must correspond, at all times, to the insurance entity.

    • The investment of the provisions of each set of assets must be made in assets that comply with the standards established in article 89 of Royal Decree 1060/2015, of November 20, on the organization, supervision and solvency of insurance and reinsurance entities. In no case may it be real estate or real estate rights.

      However, it will be understood that these requirements are met by those sets of assets that attempt to develop an investment policy characterized by reproducing a certain stock or fixed income index representative of one of the official secondary securities markets of the European Union.

    • The policyholder will only have the power to choose between the different separate sets of assets in which the insurance entity must invest the mathematical provision of the insurance, without in any case being able to intervene in the determination of the specific assets in which, within each separate set, the provisions are reversed.

In these contracts, the policyholder or insured may choose, in accordance with the specifications of the policy, between the different collective investment institutions or separate sets of assets, expressly designated in the contracts, without singular specifications being produced for each policyholder or insured. insured.