On March 15, 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the appeal filed by the State Attorney's Office (appeal 3723/2020) against a ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community relating to an alleged liability under article 42.2 a) of Law 58/2003, of December 17, General Tax Law (hereinafter LGT).

In the case analysed and the subject of the challenge, the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community, by means of the judgment dated March 4, 2020, considered that the sanctions derived by virtue of the provisions of the aforementioned article 42.2 of the LGT must be subject to automatic suspension in their execution in the event of an appeal or claim being filed against the agreement declaring liability.

In order to clarify the issue, the Supreme Court refers to the analysis carried out by the same Chamber and Section in the Supreme Court ruling of June 3, 2019, appeal 84/2018, on the occasion of the challenge to the modification made by Royal Decree 1073/2017, of December 29, in the General Regulations for the development of the LGT, in matters of review by administrative means, particularly in its articles 25.1 and 39.3.

Thus, it establishes that, if at that time the regulatory modification that expressly indicated the non-existence of automatic suspension of responsibilities for the payment of tax penalties derived based on article 42.2 of the LGT due to the filing of an appeal or claim against the agreement declaring liability was considered in accordance with the law, the same interpretation must apply in the specific case that is now being judged, indicating in this regard:

"Consequently, if our judgment, addressing the conformity with the law of a regulatory norm in itself, that is, abstractly, as the direct object of a challenge, has declared that the regulation (arts. 25 and 39.3 RGRVA) does not violate or contradict the law (art. 212.3 LGT) and this same legal norm can be interpreted in the indicated sense that it includes, within the scope of liabilities, debts that have their origin in sanctions, there is no other response than the one already indicated, since the opposite would be tantamount to admitting that it is procedurally rejectable, that something different can be said in an indirect appeal against the acts of application than what was already stated at the time, as the basis of the ruling, in a contentious-administrative appeal filed against the regulation (sic) itself.”

And the sentence concludes with the following jurisprudential doctrine:

1. "The automatic suspension of the enforceability of sanctions, established in article 212.1 LGT, is not applicable to sanctions subject to a derivation of liability under art. 42.2 LGT.

2. This is without prejudice to requesting and asking for suspension of the agreement declaring joint liability, in the case of article 42.2 LGT, in accordance with the general rules governing such suspension."