Skip to main content
VAT practical manual 2021.

Operations treated as deliveries of goods

The following operations will be treated in the same way as deliveries of goods for valuable consideration, even when there is no consideration:

  1. Self-consumption of goods.

    Self-consumption of goods occurs in the following cases:

    1. When assets are transferred from the business or professional assets to personal assets or are intended for the personal consumption of the taxpayer.

    2. When the power of disposal is transferred without compensation over tangible assets that make up the business or professional assets.

      Example:

      This occurs, among other cases, when a businessman gives his clients certain products that he has manufactured.

    3. When the assets used in one sector of activity are allocated to another separate sector of activity of the same taxpayer.

      There will be different sectors of business or professional activity in the following cases:

      1. When the following requirements are met simultaneously:

        • That the activities carried out are assigned to different groups in the National Classification of Economic Activities (approved by Royal Decree 475/2007, of April 13). The groups in this classification are identified by the first three digits.

        • That the deduction percentages differ by more than 50 percentage points in both activities, provided that neither of them is accessory to another.

          An accessory activity is understood to be one whose volume of operations in the preceding year is not greater than 15 percent of that of the main activity and provided that it contributes to the completion of the latter. Accessory activities follow the regime of the main activity and are included in the same sector as the latter.

          Under this section, two distinct sectors may exist:

          • The main activity (the one with the highest volume of operations in the previous year) together with its accessory activities and the different activities with deduction percentages that do not differ by more than 50 percentage points from that of the main activity.

          • Activities other than the main activity whose deduction percentages differ by more than 50 percentage points from the main activity.

      2. Activities covered by the simplified special regimes of agriculture, livestock and fishing, operations with investment gold or the equivalence surcharge.

      3. Financial leasing operations.

      4. Credit and loan assignment operations, with the exception of those carried out within the framework of a factoring contract. In any case, each of them constitutes different sectors.

        No self-consumption occurs:

        • When, due to a change in current regulations, an economic activity must necessarily become part of a distinct, differentiated sector. This is the case, for example, in the case of modification of the National Classification of Economic Activities.

        • When the tax regime applicable to an economic activity changes from the general regime to the simplified special regime, to the agriculture, livestock and fishing regime, to the equivalence surcharge or to the operations with investment gold, or vice versa, even by exercising an option right. This happens, for example, when a businessman who renounced the application of the simplified regime or the special regime for agriculture, livestock and fishing of VAT and who had been paying taxes in the general tax regime , revokes said resignation and begins to pay taxes under the corresponding special regime.

          The provisions of the two preceding paragraphs shall be understood, where applicable, without prejudice to:

          1. Of the regularizations of deductions provided for in articles 101, 105, 106, 107, 109,110, 112 and 113 of the VAT Law.

            Example:

            A farmer pays taxes in year “n-1” under the general tax regime after having renounced, at the time, the special regime for agriculture, livestock and fishing. In that year, he deducts 10,000 euros of input VAT for the purchase of a tractor. If you revoke the waiver with effect for year “n” and begin paying taxes under the special regime mentioned above, you will have to regularize the deduction made in said year and subsequent years until the regularization period concludes (and provided that you continue to pay taxes under the special regime).

            Regularization: (10,000 euros - 0 euros) ÷ 5 = 2,000 euros (amount to be paid)

          2. Of the application of the provisions of section two of article 99 of the VAT Law in relation to the rectification of deductions initially made according to the foreseeable destination of the goods and services acquired, when their actual destination is different from that foreseen, in the case of fees borne or paid for the acquisition or import of goods or services other than investment goods that had not been used to any extent in the development of the business or professional activity prior to the moment in which the economic activity which were foreseeably destined at the time in which the quotas were borne becomes part of a differentiated sector different from the one in which it had previously been integrated.

            Example:

            A farmer who pays taxes in year “n-1” under the general tax regime, having renounced the special regime for agriculture, livestock and fishing, deducts 100 euros of input VAT for the acquisition of fertilizers that he will use in the year “ n.” If in said year “n” he/she starts paying taxes under the special regime, revoking the waiver, he/she must rectify the deduction made, paying the 100 euros.

          3. The provisions of articles 134 bis and 155 of the VAT Law in relation to the cases of beginning or cessation of the application of the special regimes for agriculture, livestock and fishing or the equivalence surcharge.

            Example:

            A businessman who begins to pay taxes in year “n” under the special regime of the equivalence surcharge, having paid taxes in year “n-1” under the general tax regime, must enter the result of applying the VAT and surcharge rates. of equivalence to the acquisition value of the inventoried stocks, VAT excluded. In the same way, but in the opposite direction, a businessman who begins to pay taxes in year "n+1" for the general regime, having paid taxes in year "n" for the special regime for agriculture, livestock and fishing, will have the right to the deduction of VAT corresponding to the value of inventoried stocks.

    4. When the company's stock is used as investment assets.

      Self-consumption does not occur if the taxable person has been granted the right to fully deduct the input VAT if he has acquired goods of identical nature from third parties.

      This right will not be deemed to be granted if during the deduction adjustment period the assets are used for purposes that limit or exclude the right to deduct, are used in operations that do not generate the right to deduction, or if the general pro rata rule is applicable or a tax-exempt delivery is made that does not generate the right to deduction.

      Example:

      A real estate developer with a deductible input VAT percentage of less than 100% that builds a property for sale (stock) which is assigned as an office (investment asset) to the company.

  2. Transfers of assets made by a business to another Member State of the European Union to meet the needs of his company there.

    There is no operation assimilated to the delivery of goods when the goods are used in certain operations: thus, the performance of deliveries of goods that are considered to have been made in the Member State of arrival or the temporary use of said goods in the Member State of arrival, the performance of services for the taxable person established in Spain or the delivery of gas, electricity, heat or cold through the natural gas or electricity distribution system or heat or cooling networks.

    Transfers made within the framework of an agreement to sell goods on consignment under the terms provided for in article 9 bis of the VAT Law will not have this consideration. The regime applicable to these transfers is analysed in detail in a specific section of that chapter.