5.2. Tax professionals

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.

This collaboration has been implemented, over the last two decades, in the electronic submission of tax returns and other documents on behalf of third parties through collaboration agreements signed by the Tax Agency with other Public Administrations, with private entities and with institutions or organizations representing social, labor, business or professional sectors or interests, reaching, as of December 31, 2020, the figure of 4,474 signed adhesion agreements or protocols (23 of them throughout 2020).

Around 53 percent of the returns filed online have been submitted by social workers (of which around 96 percent have been submitted by 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 2020, the Forum met in plenary session on two occasions.

At the plenary session of July 2, 2019, the Code of Good Practices for Associations and Colleges of Tax Professionals and the Code of Good Practices for Tax Professionals were approved. Under the principles of voluntariness, bilaterality, transparency and trust, mutual agreement, collaboration, confidentiality and privacy and ease of communication, the parties assume commitments that will allow progress in the development of the cooperative relationship model between the Tax Agency and the representatives of tax intermediaries, as well as with the tax professionals themselves, and promote the generalization of good tax practices by taxpayers.

As of December 31, 2020, 25 associations and colleges were adhering to the Code of Good Practices of Associations and Colleges of Tax Professionals, and 301 professionals to the Code of Good Practices of Tax Professionals.

In addition, during the 2020 financial year, the application for electronic tax consultations that can be submitted by professional tax associations and colleges has been developed, which has allowed its implementation at the beginning of 2021.

In 2020, various meetings of the working groups were held, which enabled the communication of the necessary measures and changes adopted as a result of the health crisis with repercussions in the tax area.