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, in the last two decades, in the telematic presentation of declarations and other tax 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 accession agreements or protocols (23 of them throughout 2020).

About 53 percent of returns filed online have been filed by social partners (of which about 96 percent have been filed 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 has met in plenary session on two occasions.

In the plenary session of July 2, 2019, the Code of Good Practices of Associations and Colleges of Tax Professionals and the Code of Good Practices of 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 the fiscal 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 adhered to the Code of Good Practices of Associations and Colleges of Tax Professionals, and 301 professionals adhered to the Code of Good Practices of Tax Professionals.

In addition, during fiscal year 2020, the application for electronic tax consultations that can be submitted by colleges and associations of tax professionals has been developed, which has allowed it to be put into operation at the beginning of 2021.

In 2020, various working group meetings were held, which allowed the communication of the necessary measures and changes adopted as a result of the health crisis with repercussions on the tax field.