5.2. Social Co-operation

Fiscal intermediaries, as representatives of the taxpayers in their relations with the Tax Administration, collaborate with the Tax Agency in the management of the taxes, as they provide taxpayers with the knowledge and understanding of their tax duties and help them to fulfill them.

In the last two decades, this collaboration has consisted of electronic filing of tax returns and other tax documents in representation of third parties through collaboration agreements subscribed by the Tax Agency and other government bodies, private organisations or institutions or organisations representing social, labour-related, business or professional sectors or interests, reaching 4,325 agreements or membership protocols signed as of 31 of December 2016 (21 of them during 2016).

As in other years, around 60 percent of the tax returns filed online have been filed by business collaborators (of which 97 percent are tax professionals).

After reviewing the importance of tax professionals as social collaborators in the electronic filing of tax returns and other tax documents, the Tax Agency considered it convenient to establish a new relation framework with these tax intermediaries. For this, on 30 March 2011 the Associations of Tax Professionals Forum was created as a co-operative relationship body based on transparency and mutual trust, whose results benefit the taxpayers, favouring and facilitating the voluntary fulfilment of their tax duties.

During 2016 the Forum has held plenary on two occasions.