Plenary Sessions
The Plenary is composed of all its members, under the direction of the President and assisted by the Technical Secretary
Seventh session - July 1, 2015
MINUTES OF THE PLENARY MEETING OF THE FORUM OF ASSOCIATIONS AND
COLLEGES OF TAX PROFESSIONALS
HELD ON JULY 1, 2015
President of the Forum of Associations and Colleges of Tax Professionals
General Director of the State Tax Administration Agency
Mr. Santiago Menéndez Menéndez
Members representing the State Tax Administration Agency:
Director of the Tax Management Department
D. Rufino de la Rosa Cordón
Director of the Department of Financial and Tax Inspection
Mr. Luis Mª Sánchez González
Director of the Collection Department
Ms. Soledad García López
Director of the Planning and Institutional Relations Service
Mr. Ángel Rodríguez Rodríguez
Director of the Legal Service
Mr. Diego Loma-Osorio Lerena
Director of the Tax IT Department
Mr. Alfonso Castro Martínez
Director of the Department of Aduanas and Excise Duties
Mrs. Pilar Jurado Borrego
Special Delegate of Catalonia
Mr. Gonzalo David García de Castro
Members representing Associations and Colleges
Professional Association of Accounting and Tax Experts of Spain
Chairperson
Mr. Carlos Berrocal Rangel
General Council of Colleges of Administrative Managers
Vice President of the College of Alicante
Mr. José Luis Tonda Martínez
President of the Official College of Galicia
Mrs. Pilar Otero Moar
General Council of Official Colleges of Social Graduates of Spain
Specialist member in fiscal and tax matters
Mr. José Castaño Semitiel
General Council of Spanish Lawyers
Vice Dean of the Balearic Bar Association
Mr. Rafael Gil March
Spanish Federation of Professional Associations of Tax Technicians and Tax Advisors
First Vice President Board of Directors
Mr. Juan Alejandro Méndez Hernández
Cabinet of Administrative Managers and Tax Advisors
Lawyer
Mrs. Raquel Cobos Casero
General Registry of Tax Advisors / Registry of Tax Advisory Economists
Chairperson
Mr. Jesús Sanmartín Mariñas
Technical secretary
Mr. Luis del Amo Carbajo
Spanish Association of Tax Advisors
Deputy Director of the Studies Office
Mrs. Marta González Álvaro
Technical Secretariat of the Forum of Professional Associations and Colleges
Deputy Director General of External Communication – Planning and Institutional Relations Service
Mr. Rafael Serrano Galán
In Madrid, on July 1, 2015, the seventh plenary meeting of the Forum of Associations and Colleges of Tax Professionals is held, attended by the aforementioned people, and in accordance with the following
AGENDA
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Opening by the General Director of the State Tax Administration Agency.
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Approval of the minutes of the session held on February 4, 2015.
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Intervention of the Director of the Department of Financial and Tax Inspection to address the consequences of failure to submit the declaration of assets abroad on time (Form 720).
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Intervention by the Director of the Tax Management Department to discuss the provisional balance of the 2014 Personal Income Tax campaign.
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Other considerations, requests and questions.
I.- In development of the first point of the agenda , the President of the Forum and General Director of the State Tax Administration Agency opens the session , Mr. Santiago Menéndez Menéndez, first welcoming the attendees and the new members of the Forum on behalf of the Tax Agency, Mr. Rafael Serrano Galán Deputy Director General of External Communication of the Planning and Institutional Relations Service, who acts as Technical Secretary of this Forum and Mr. Diego Loma-Osorio Lerena, Director of the Legal Service and expresses his gratitude to his predecessors Mr. Eduardo Beut González and Mr. Juan Manuel Herrero de Egaña y Espinosa de los Monteros. The following highlights the importance for the Tax Agency of the work carried out by social collaborators, who are always intended to be participants and knowledgeable in the projects and actions undertaken. It also appreciates the request made by different associations to create within this Forum, a Working Group on the SII project (Immediate Supply of Information) and announces that this Group will be established and possibly meetings can be held in the different Special Delegations of the Agency, with the territorial representatives of the different associations, so that these professionals participate with the Tax Agency in a closer way.
II.- In development of the second point of the agenda , the President of the Forum gives the floor to Mr. Rafael Serrano Galán, as responsible for the Technical Secretariat of the Forum, which explains the process of preparing the minutes of the previous meeting. With no observations made, the minutes of the meeting of February 4, 2015 are approved, which will be published in the space reserved for the Forum on the Tax Agency's website.
III.- In development of the third point of the agenda , the President gives the floor to Mr. Luis María Sánchez González, Director of the Department of Financial and Tax Inspection, which points out that the Director General of the Agency has already commented in the Congress of Deputies that real action is being taken against the failure to submit the declaration of assets abroad on time (Form 720) and, In fact, this is provided for in the general guidelines of the Annual Tax and Customs Control Plan.
In this sense, he points out that the Tax Administration is basically carrying out two types of actions: on the one hand, those intended for those who have not submitted form 720, there being indications that they have assets abroad, and, on the other hand, those intended for those taxpayers who have submitted the form but have not done so on time. He adds that the casuistry is very broad and that it could also happen, for example, that in the course of the verification actions the conclusion is reached that a taxpayer who has submitted the form after the deadline was not really required to present it. This means that verification will not necessarily lead to the imposition of a sanction.
He continues his presentation by remembering that for late presenters there is a formal sanction whose minimum is €1,500, which allows reduction for prompt payment. In relation to non-compliance with the material obligation, its regulation is fundamentally contained in article 39.2 of the Personal Income Tax Law and its equivalent of the Corporate Tax Law, which basically consists of taxation as unjustified gain of assets related to assets or rights that have not been declared within the deadline, although always respecting the two safeguards included in the second paragraph of the aforementioned article 39.2. That is, if the taxpayer proves that the ownership of the assets or rights corresponds to declared income or income obtained in tax periods for which he or she did not have the status of taxpayer for the Tax, this taxation will not be applied as a capital gain. not justified. Accreditation can occur once a verification procedure has started even if the model has been submitted after the deadline. With regard to the declared income, there are no qualifications and it is understood that it does not necessarily imply that the declaration was made on time since it is possible that it was declared at a later time. Furthermore, a consequence of the application of article 39.2 is the loss of prescription to the extent that the income has not been declared. Therefore, taking into account that taxpayers whose income comes from non-prescribed years can regularize perfectly with the general rules, those taxpayers whose income comes from prescribed years cannot be left in a worse condition. Therefore, to the extent that there is a complete regularization of the income by the taxpayer or of the unjustified capital gain, in the terms of the aforementioned article 39.2, that is, through its imputation to the oldest tax period of those not prescribed in which the rule was in force, that is, the year 2012, and to the extent that this occurs without any administrative intervention, it is understood that there is an untimely regularization without prior requirement. In this case, the 20% surcharge would be applied and at the same time, if applicable, there would be a formal infraction that would entail the imposition of the corresponding sanction, but always the sanction related to the formal non-compliance, therefore lower.
He adds that sanctions are not applied automatically but rather it is necessary to assess guilt in each specific case. For example, cases of people who may have had some type of difficulty in knowing that this rule was applicable are being evaluated, always going case by case in those cases where it is apparent that there is no guilt.
It concludes by pointing out that regularizations as a gain of assets are occurring in relation to defaulters who have had a significant volume of money and assets abroad, being residents in Spain, without having been subject to taxation in any case. That is to say, these are taxpayers in a situation of concealment that led them to not submit the declaration on time and to locate their assets outside of Spain. These are the cases in which there are genuine unjustified capital gains, because they wanted to hide income, the special tax return was not submitted at the time and form 720 was not submitted. In these cases the situation is one of deliberate concealment of assets and rights abroad. These are the cases that the Agency considers to be of highest risk and is trying to locate.
The President then opens a speaking session
Mr. Rafael Gil March, representative of the General Council of Spanish Lawyers, intervenes and asks if the Agency has thought about publishing any informative note in relation to this matter.
Mr. Luis María Sánchez González points out that the stated criterion is quite assumed and accepted by everyone, even so it is being reflected in the media and therefore can be perfectly conveyed to all the members of the associations and schools represented in this Plenary.
The President adds that it is necessary to make it clear that when a taxpayer presents the 720 after the deadline and presents it without prior request from the Administration, it regularizes the consequences that the rule itself imposes, and in accordance with article 39.2 it regularizes the increase not justified heritage. In this case, we are dealing with a late presentation, the corresponding surcharges are applied and therefore the 150% penalty is not imposed, without prejudice to the much reduced formal penalty for late presentation. It also indicates that it is interesting that it is conveyed that when the 150% penalty is imposed it is because we are faced with a taxpayer who, having an obligation to present the 720, has not presented it or presents it after the deadline without regularizing it by the aforementioned article 39.2 and Once the Tax Agency has discovered that he has assets and rights abroad, this taxpayer does not prove in any way that these assets and rights come from declared income. He adds that, in this sense, the Agency will admit any reasonable means of proof to prove that the assets and rights actually came from declared income.
The President concludes and some representatives of the Associations and Colleges present make some comments on the possibility of submitting queries on the matter to the General Directorate of Taxes and on the fact that some associations have already submitted them.
IV.- In development of the fourth point of the agenda , the President gives the floor to Mr. Rufino de la Rosa Cordón, Director of the Department of Tax Management, to carry out the provisional balance of the 2014 Personal Income Tax campaign.
The speaker, who uses a power point presentation in his presentation, first indicates that although the data are provisional, they may already be quite reliable. He continues by pointing out that the trend since 1993 is to increase assistance, that is, the services that the Tax Agency provides to taxpayers, be it telephone information, assistance in the offices, sending the draft, telephone presentation. and the RENØ. Within this trend, the milestone for the next campaign will be the extension of “Web Rent”.
Regarding this year's campaign, its objectives were to enhance telematic presentation, make certain improvements to the PADRE program, so that it becomes increasingly simpler, and begin the process of merging the draft with the “Web Rent”. This last possibility has worked this year as a limited pilot test in the assistance that the Agency provides in the offices. On the other hand, there has been a unification of deadlines and calendar, which has meant a very important advance in the returns campaign and in the presentation of returns. In addition, the taxpayer has been informed for the first time of the destination of the taxes, that is, their distribution in the different expenditure policy items carried out by all public administrations. He adds that with regard to the VERIFICA procedure, for this campaign it will begin in a couple of weeks and will be extended to the entire group that is potentially likely to require this procedure.
The President then indicates the great advance that this procedure represents since it allows certain incidents to be resolved online. It emphasizes the importance of the information that this campaign is providing about the destination of taxes, since it will be very useful in raising awareness regarding the obligation that we all have to pay taxes.
Regarding the advertising campaign “We contribute to receive”, he points out that it is underway and that due to the electoral calendars, it has had to be concentrated at this time. It informs that the budget will continue to be allocated to general awareness campaigns and that efforts will be made to improve and expand the civic-tax education program as far as possible, even extending it to universities. He adds that paying taxes is an act of solidarity since these amounts are fundamentally destined for pensions, unemployment benefits, social aid for all those people who during these years have had a really bad time, free education so that So there is true equality of opportunity in healthcare, so that there is public healthcare for everyone. All of this is going to have a lot of impact and, therefore, there will be advertising campaigns in this regard.
Mr. Rufino de la Rosa continues by reporting on the updated data of the income campaign and points out that the current one has always maintained an increase compared to the rate of filing of returns from previous years. In relation to the returns made, there is also greater progress as the PADRE and the draft have been unified. It then announces that around 19,250,000 declarations are expected, with a slight increase seen in those with a result to be entered.
Of the services related to tax drafts and data provided by the Tax Agency, the RENØ service continues to be a success, since more than 15 million RENØ applications have been produced to date. Regarding the Cl@ve PIN, this year there are 1,237,000 uses. Regarding the forms of presentation of this campaign, there has been a decrease in the presentation of drafts of 630,000, although this is largely due to the beginning of the “Renta Web” pilot test. The group in which the “Renta Web” has begun to be put into practice is that of taxpayers with the draft pending confirmation and also some taxpayers from the PADRE group with leases. Around 550,000 Web Rentals of this type have been made in the offices. On the other hand, regarding the forms of presentation, it can be anticipated that almost 80% of the declarations have been submitted online and there has been a small decrease in telephone assistance. The rest of the ways, which are the PDF or the drafts delivered to financial entities, represent 8% of the presentations. He emphasizes that what is relevant about all this is that the rest of the presentation methods only account for 8% of the total presentations and that the modifications to the draft also occur to a large extent via the Internet. It can be said that the taxpayer is increasingly in this line of self-service, carrying out all the processing, by himself or through his collaborator. Likewise, prior appointments are also requested in more than 50% of cases online.
V.- In development of the fifth point of the agenda , the President addresses those present to open a speaking turn.
Mr. Carlos Berrocal Rangel, representative of the Professional Association of Accounting and Tax Experts (AECE), intervenes first to indicate that there is a problem with the VERIFICA application, since it cannot be accessed as “social collaborators” but only through the figure of power of attorney. Mr. Rufino de la Rosa Cordón responds to this by pointing out that, as there is prior notification within the procedure, it is not possible to access the application other than through the power of attorney, but that nevertheless this proposal for the participation of the social collaborator within the procedure.
The President adds that, in this sense, it is necessary to highlight that respect for the confidentiality of taxpayer data, enshrined in article 95 of the General Tax Law, is essential for the Tax Agency.
Mr. Jesús Sanmartín Mariñas and Mr. Luis del Amo Carbajo, both representatives of the General Registry of Tax Advisors / Registry of Tax Advisory Economists, next point out that problems are emerging with the possibility of “compensation” of amounts between spouses and with the data cadastral data offered by the application. This last problem gives rise to numerous requirements. To this, Mr. Rufino de la Rosa Cordón responds that the applications are evolving to refine them as much as possible, especially for the upcoming “Renta Web”. However, it informs that the cadastral data must be corrected in the Cadastre itself, otherwise these errors will be supplied again by the General Directorate of Cadastre to the Tax Agency.
Mr. Luis del Amo Carbajo and Mr. Rafael Gil March, then raise the problem of the five-day notice regarding the general deadline for direct debit and the impossibility that exists for communities of property to resort to this procedure. For this reason, they request a meeting with the banking entities within the framework of the Forum. Mr. Rufino indicates that this request should be addressed to the Forum Secretariat and it will be forwarded to the banks. Mr. José Luis Tonda Martínez, representative of the General Council of Colleges of Administrative Managers, intervenes and indicates that said request will be made the following day. The President concludes by pointing out that all necessary efforts will be made to improve this situation.
The problem of removing the printing module then arises. To this last point, Mr. Rufino de la Rosa Cordón responds that the new procedure for the next campaign will modify the entire scheme and these impressions will no longer be necessary, since the Agency will have online of the content of the statements.
It is commented below that problems of lack of coordination are occurring with the prior appointment and that this matter should be addressed in the Working Group or even an “ad hoc” group could be created to address this problem. The President responds that the proposal will be studied.
With no more demonstrations taking place, the session adjourned, with thanks to all participants and with the commitment of the Tax Agency to work on improving communication channels.
The Technical Secretary of the Forum
Mr. Rafael Serrano Galán
The President of the Forum
Mr. Santiago Menéndez Menéndez