4.2.4. Support for paying tax liabilities

Payment in financial institutions  

In order to facilitate the payment of taxes, the tax legislation empowers the Tax Agency to authorise credit institutions who request this to act as collaborating bodies in tax collection. As of 31 of December 2016, 126 entities had the authorisation to act as collaborators in the tax collection management.

The total amount collected through these collaborating bodies reached 232,015 million euros in 2016, making it the most common system of payment.

During 2016, certain verification actions have been carried out on a total of 41 entities (one of which was controlled from an integral point of view). Likewise, inspections were conducted in relation to 1,804 attachment actions on bank accounts corresponding to 12 institutions, with the aim of verifying the results of the obstacles reported by them to the Tax Agency.

Finally, during 2016, the Central Team for Control of Collaborating Entities have collected 33 interest charges from 25 entities for late payment. The total amount of the late payment interests collected is 50,643.77 euros.

Deferment and payment by instalments

The taxpayers can request the deferral and fractioning of their debts when temporary treasury problems obstruct the payment.

In 2016 there was a decrease in both the number of applications for payment deferral and splitting and the amount requested compared to 2015.

Thus, 1,662,242 applications were submitted for an amount of 9,392.7 million euros, that is to say, 0.5% less than in 2015 in number and 6% less in amount.

The charts displayed below and in the Appendix show the distribution of the applications for deferral and payment by instalments according to the amount of the debts:

More than 98% of the applications received correspond to debts of less than €30,000, although they represent only 57% of the total requested amount. In these deferments, the entry into force of Order HAP/2178/2015 of 9 October, published on 20 October 2015, exempts the debtor of the general obligation of providing proof of the payment when making the application.

As for the volume of payment deferrals and payments by instalments that have been dealt with, in 2016, 67,707 requests for deferral or payment by instalment amounting to 457.39 million euros have been declined, and 1,563,016 agreements have been reached for a total amount of 7,528.2 million euros, for the reasons shown in the table below:

The significant drop in the number and amount of the deferrals rejected in 2016 with respect to 2015 is due to the reduction in the number, and particularly the amount of deferrals requested overall (the global figures for 2015 amounted to 1,670,066 deferrals totalling 10,033.55 million euros), and in particular debts for which it is already known that the deferral will not be admitted.

The tables and graphs contained in the Annex and referred to below show the principal magnitudes in this respect: