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Methodology

Population scope

These statistics are a census survey of companies that file VAT returns, whether or not they are required to submit an annual summary of their operations.

All VAT taxpayers who are required to file periodic VAT returns and are not exempt from filing, whether monthly or quarterly, must file the annual summary return. This includes taxpayers considered large companies and those subject to the joint declaration procedure.

The VAT population includes a group of taxpayers who are considered entrepreneurs for the sole purposes of applying the VAT Law, consisting of landlords of business premises.

VAT regulations exclude taxpayers under certain special regimes from the obligation to declare and settle the tax. Thus, Article 129 of the VAT Law excludes taxpayers under the Special Regime for Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries from these obligations; and Article 154.2 excludes those covered by the Special Regime of the Equivalence Surcharge.

However, this circumstance does not imply that operations carried out by these groups are not included in the statistics. Quite the contrary, the activities carried out within the scope of the Special Regime for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries are included in the statistics through the compensation paid by those subjects purchasing agricultural, livestock or fishery products under this special regime, and the activities of retail traders carried out within the scope of the Special Regime of the Equivalence Surcharge are integrated through the surcharge passed on together with the VAT quotas on the deliveries of goods made by the taxpayers suppliers (wholesalers or manufacturers) to these subjects covered by the Special Regime, and declared in their annual summary together with the rest of their operations.

For all the above reasons and as a summary, the main business groups excluded from the tax and, therefore, from these statistics are:

  • In the area of ​​personal businesses, the main groups of personal businesses excluded from the obligation to declare VAT are the following:

    • Professionals who exclusively carry out activities exempt from VAT: doctors, health professionals, psychologists, opticians, stomatologists, dentists, teachers, etc.
    • Personal businesses and individual entrepreneurs domiciled in the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla

    It should be noted that the activities carried out by individual entrepreneurs included in the Special Agricultural Regime and in Retail Trade in Equivalence Surcharge are computed indirectly through the taxpayers who bear the Agricultural Compensation or pass on the VAT in Equivalence Surcharge, respectively.

  • In the field of companies, the following are excluded:
    • Companies that exclusively carry out exempt activities: health, education and social assistance
    • Companies domiciled in the Canary Islands, Ceuta or Melilla.
    • Companies that pay taxes exclusively to the Provincial Councils of the Basque Country or the Foral Community of Navarre.
  • In the field of Public Administrations or private non-profit institutions, they will be excluded to the extent that they carry out activities not subject to VAT. For VAT purposes, these are final consumers.