FAQs

Why this statistic?

These statistics describe the most notable characteristics of Spanish SMEs without a corporate form, commonly known as self-employed workers. This allows us to complete the overview of general economic activity, the analysis of which has, until now, focused on activities carried out by companies in corporate form.

What is the group that is the object of statistical analysis?

This statistic deals with the information contained in the declarations of a subset of the population filing Personal Income Tax, delimited by the declarations containing items related to the income from self-employment. Therefore, the group under analysis will be characterized by the performance of economic activities under the terms provided for in the regulations governing Personal Income Tax, article 27 of the Law. Due to the 2016 tax reform, starting this year, the statistical analysis group includes entrepreneurs whose total net income from economic activities is zero due to the application of the reductions set out in articles 32.2.1 and 32.2.3 of the Personal Income Tax Law.

What's new?

The income from economic activities in the set of declarations subject to statistics incorporate all the details relating to economic activity that allow us to know the profitability of the business and professional activities of the self-employed, the importance of the income from their activities with respect to the rest of the declared income, the number of activities they declare, the failure rate by activity and, a particularly important element that is published for the first time, the resulting quota of the declaration attributed to the economic activity and the effective rate of the business and professional activity.

How are statistics structured?

Statistics are structured into two large blocks: entrepreneurs with economic activities, which includes the entire group under study, and entrepreneurs with a single activity who constitute a subset of the previous block with significant specific weight. Within each block the information is analyzed from two perspectives: of the declaration and of activity.

What is the declaration perspective?

For tax purposes, each return contains the income of one or more individuals. Regarding economic activity, income may be derived from one or more activities carried out by one or more persons. The tax mechanism requires activities to be declared separately according to the method used to determine the income, with three methods for determining the net income or profit from the activity: normal direct, simplified direct and objective estimation. In objective estimation there are two different procedures, one for non-agricultural business activities and another for agricultural ones. Up to six different activities can be included within each of the modalities.

From the declaration perspective, the information is analyzed considering each declaration as a unit of analysis and the classification criteria derived from the attributes or characteristics of the declaration are incorporated, combined with other information from other tax sources (census of declarants, number of employees). Examples include the main source of income, the effective rate and rate attributed to the economic activity, the classification of the declaration in a performance determination method, the calculation of the performance of all economic activities, and the inclusion in these calculations of imputed income from the attribution of income corresponding to economic activities.

What is the activity perspective?

From the activity perspective, each of the activities in the declaration is considered a unit of analysis, and classifications and characteristics inherent to the activity and the subject performing it are analyzed. The activity perspective presents a general analysis of the main variables of the declared activities (number of activities, positive performance, attributable effective rate, and failure rate) with the maximum level of detail by activity according to the Economic Activities Tax codes. Depending on the performance determination method, the declaration template provides a breakdown of the information.

Why a block of entrepreneurs with a single activity?

The distinction between the block of entrepreneurs with a single activity allows for the merging of common characteristics from the perspective of the declaration and the activity due to the bi-univocal relationship established between both (one declaration - one entrepreneur - one activity).

Meaning of theintegration moduleof Personal Income Tax/RAE in the RAE statistics

The analysis of personal Personal Income Tax taxation of entrepreneurs (business context) becomes relevant in comparing their characteristics with the population of taxpayers who do not earn income from economic activities (non-business context).

Within the business framework, two groups can be distinguished. On the one hand, individual entrepreneurs, who are the subject of the information used in these statistics, and on the other, the group of subjects who obtain their business income through an entity under an income attribution regime.

The integration module contains comparative information on the weight of each group, their average incomes, and their average tax contributions.

This module aims to establish a status report on the non-corporate business sector, that is, the sector comprised of individual entrepreneurs in our country, and position it within the framework of general income tax. In turn, the differentiated analysis of this business group allows for a comparison with the taxation of other economic activities carried out through a corporate legal form.

How is the effective rate attributable to economic activity defined?

The effective rate attributable to economic activity is defined as the ratio between the net rate attributable to economic activity and the income or profit derived from the same economic activities.

In determining the attributable quota, the following measures are taken into account: the reductions established for the exercise of economic activities in Article 32 of Law 35/2006 on Personal Income Tax, and the deductions from the quota in Article 68.2 of the Law.

The different methods for determining performance are also analyzed separately, highlighting the differences in taxation that exist between them.

Differences between the effective rate attributable to economic activity and the effective Personal Income Tax rate

This statistic allows for a differentiated analysis of the taxation corresponding to the specific source of income by economic activity, and the taxation of the total global income received by Personal Income Tax filers.

Based on previous work carried out at the AEAT headquarters, the net tax is distributed by income source. To obtain it, we start by differentiating the sources of income that are subject to tax and the specific fiscal measures for each of them, both those that operate by reducing the taxable income (reductions) and those that operate by reducing the quota (deductions). In addition, the effects of general measures of a personal or family nature not linked to the type of income; Reductions, minimums and deductions are distributed proportionally to each type of income. For each individual, the amount of attributable income and the share attributed to each of the income sources are obtained.

What does the failure rate mean?

The failure rate is defined at the level of the different groups or classifications used in the statistics. In a specific aggregate, this rate represents the percentage of companies in that group that carry out their economic activity with a negative result, that is, the percentage of companies with losses relative to the total number of companies in a category.

Loss-making companies, by definition, do not have to pay tax on this type of income. Therefore, the net share attributable to economic activity in these companies is zero. Only profitable companies contribute net tax attributable to economic activities, and the effective tax rate will be exclusive to profitable companies (with positive net income from the activity).

What is the use of the primary source of income classification?

The main source of income is that whose net returns represent more than 50% of the total income.

Differentiating between the group of entrepreneurs whose primary source of income is economic activity and the rest, who carry out their activity on a secondary basis, allows for a more precise analysis of economic activity and its taxation.

The group whose main source of income is derived from their economic activity includes entrepreneurs who simultaneously carry out several activities and those who carry out their activity with employees. Furthermore, in this group the measurement of the effective rate attributable to economic activity and the overall Personal Income Tax rate are much closer.

Taxpayers whose economic activity is a secondary source of income have either labor income or capital income as their main component, although salary income is more prevalent.

The reason for the details of the income statements of economic activities

Economic activities in the Personal Income Tax) are declared under three blocks of information that correspond to the three different methods of determining income, which determine the construction of each income statement.

The block of activities indirect estimate, collects income and expense data in the style of an income statement, applying corporate tax regulations, so the information model is similar to the profit and loss account of the General Accounting Plan.

In the block of activities inobjective estimateof business activitiesexcluding agricultural ones, no information on income and expenses is available. Performance is determined by assessing the objective signs and modules identified as relevant to the performance of the activity. Certain incentives for employment and investment are quantified, which can be a measure of the use of these productive factors, and an economic quantification is made of the impact of each of the corrective measures of the general indices that are applied (small business, seasonal activity, correction of excesses, start of activities and special corrector). However, extraordinary expenses and income are included and are part of the calculation of net income.

In the block of activities inobjective agricultural estimate, the revenue figure is available as a starting point for the income statement, the amortization expense is also included, and the remaining expenses intervene indirectly through the economic quantification of the corrections applied through the indices (crops on leased land, acquisition of feed from third parties in excess of 50%, organic farming, etc.). The extraordinary expenses that are included in the income statement are also explained.

Why are there two entrepreneur counts in the performance determination tables in the activity perspective?

These tables present two ways of counting the number of entrepreneurs who have activities in the different performance determination modalities: The variableNumber of entrepreneursIt shows the number of entrepreneurs with activities in the selected performance determination, regardless of whether they also have activities in other forms of performance determination. The variableFraction of entrepreneursIt takes into account cases in which more than one activity occurs, even in different performance determination methods, and has proceeded to prorate or establish weights for each activity based on the distribution of its performance in absolute value.

Has anything new been included in the 2022 statistics?

Two new features have been included:

1. A more detailed classification of the agricultural and livestock sector, including the differentiation between agricultural, livestock, forestry, and fishing activities. This classification is common to live and module activities.
2. An operation for products or services derived from agricultural, livestock and forestry activities in an objective estimation.

What information do the new product tables provide?

Full details are provided by product and autonomous community for the two most relevant variables related to activity in the objective agricultural estimate: the amount of income and returns for each type of product from each activity.