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Methodology

FAQs

Economic and tax results in VAT

What is the information that forms the basis of statistics?

The "Economic and tax results in VAT" statistic is based on several different tax sources: the annual summary declarations corresponding to the taxpayers of the Value Added Tax (form 390), completed, from the 2014 financial year, with the summary of the operations of the subjects exempt from presenting the form 390 by aggregating their periodic declarations, form 303, the declarations corresponding to the operations assimilated to the import (form 380) and the customs declarations corresponding to the imports of goods and the liquidation of the tax contained in the SAD (Single Administrative Document). In 2017, with the entry into force of Royal Decree 596/2016 on July 1, 2017, a pseudo-declaration of Form 390 was incorporated into the preparation of these statistics for those subject to the SII.

The Model Declaration 

390 provides information on the main components of the economic variables being analyzed, such as sales, purchases, investment and foreign trade; as well as the tax variables that determine the VAT balance per declaration and the main tax parameters of the tax: average sales and purchase rates, pro rata, etc.; variables, all of which together explain the tax collection.

Why is it important?

Value Added Tax is a state tax with harmonized regulations in the European Union, the collection of which is linked to the evolution of relevant economic figures in the economy.

The analysis of VAT revenue data included in this publication aims to provide a suitable tool for quantifying the revenue effects attributable to each economic factor, since revenue is defined as a mathematical function whose explanatory variables are economic magnitudes, given a given tax structure.

VAT is the State's second largest source of non-financial revenue, hence the emphasis placed on the contribution to revenue analysis offered in this publication.

What is the ultimate goal of this statistic?

The final objective is to present the results of VAT declarants, and in particular to approximate the magnitude of Collection as a product between the Theoretical Base and the Weighted Average Rate. The definition of the Theoretical Basis subject to taxation must be interpreted as the object of VAT imposition, that is, it is the quantification of "Final Domestic Consumption" obtained by aggregating the added values ​​incorporated into production by all economic units in the system (reporting units).

What specific aspects allow this publication to be used as a tool for tax collection analysis?

  • Construction of the concept of period revenue as a sum of several components, all defined as the product of an economic variable and its weighted average tax rate.
  • Definition of a tax collection configuration account in which, in addition to the collection components, tax balances are defined as analysis variables that gradually incorporate the effects of the different regulatory aspects of the tax.
  • Implementation of two new criteria for classifying or grouping declarants:
    • CLASS: whose objective is to isolate the group of declarants whose behavior towards the tax is the most general, that is, the one that is not affected by any regulatory specialty that distorts their settlement. This class has been called "General Deduction" and is distinguished from those who file declarations under the "Simplified Regime", from those required to charge lower VAT rates than those actually paid, and from those who carry out activities subject to special deduction regimes.
    • COLLECTIVE: whose objective is to group the declarants according to the cause that originates the sign of their collection of the period, in this way those who generate a positive balance are differentiated from those who obtain a negative balance. In the latter case, a distinction will be made as to whether the cause is the performance of foreign activity, investments, or a consequence of the activity.

How is the theoretical basis built?

The definition of consumption starts from the definition of GDP from the perspective of demand:

From this perspective, the concepts that make up GDP are defined in aggregate terms. If VAT is levied on consumption, the BIT (Theoretical Tax Base) of the tax could be identified with consumption as follows:

Also being:

Therefore,

"Adjustments" are those derived from regulations, for example, implications of non-taxable transactions, implications of restrictions on the right to deduct, implementation of special regimes, etc. ...

Why is information on the main macro-magnitudes of our economy available?

Within the EU framework, it has been decided to settle the tax using the "quota on quota" mechanism. However, the periodic tax settlement models include information on the taxable bases and other relevant variables for information purposes to know the total volume of operations of each company (including exempt sales and even those not subject to tax), as well as the total amount of purchases (including those corresponding to input and non-deductible tax, etc.). ...).

Correspondence of the Economic and Tax Results statistics on VAT and Statistics by VAT items

The VAT Statistics by Item are based solely and exclusively on Form 390 Annual Summary, whereas the VAT Economic and Tax Results Statistics also add information from the declarations corresponding to operations similar to imports (Form 380) and the customs declarations corresponding to imports of goods and the tax settlement contained in the SAD (Single Administrative Document).

In the Statistics by VAT items, the information is found in terms of items of the annual summary declaration, however in the Statistics of Economic and Tax Results in VAT, the available information is not found in terms of items, but rather in terms of economic and tax variables that respond to the definitions included in the corresponding Methodology.

Furthermore, the concept of theoretical basis and the classifications used are another differentiating element of both publications.

Are the data of entrepreneurs who have been exempted from filing the annual summary tax return included?

The Statistics on Economic and Tax Results in VAT include all transactions carried out during the fiscal year by taxpayers who have submitted periodic tax returns in any of the fiscal year's settlement periods.

The data of those entrepreneurs exempt from the obligation to file the annual summary is obtained by aggregating their periodic declarations and is transformed into a virtual record using the same format as Form 390.

This transformation allows the same tabulations to be made for this group and for the group of direct filers of Form 390. For this reason, the annual summary data is presented regardless of its source (form 390 or aggregation of forms 303) starting with the 2014 financial year, as shown in previous years.

For businesses subject to SII (Spanish Social Security Institute), data is obtained by completing a pseudo-declaration of Form 390 using various data sources: information contained in forms 303 and 322, annual information contained in the last financial year settlement, exploitation of records of invoices issued and received, information on data from form 349, VIES, and even declarations from previous financial years.

This reconstruction allows for complete data collection on all VAT taxpayers for a given fiscal year, and full comparability of statistical figures between different fiscal years.