The Tax Agency's essential objectives include improving taxpayers' tax behaviour by providing assistance in compliance and, secondly, combating tax fraud.

In this second objective, the Department of Financial and Tax Inspection and the officials that comprise it constitute an essential instrument for the control of inexcusable non-compliance with tax regulations.

Citizens who properly comply with their tax obligations demand that their contribution to cover public expenses does not have to increase because fraudsters stop receiving income, and the Department of Financial and Tax Inspection is working along these lines.

The Department carries out its function by coordinating a group of officials spread throughout the State; always under the General Guidelines of the Tax and Customs Control Plan of the Tax Agency.

The detection of those individual taxpayers, companies or other entities that may be failing to comply with their obligations is based on tax risk analysis techniques, based on the declarations submitted by taxpayers and those obtained through requests made to third parties and other available sources.

The Inspection Department issues instructions, criteria notes and reports that establish uniform procedures and identical regularisation criteria, which guarantee equal treatment for all citizens, regardless of their place of residence. In this task, the role of the Central Units specialising in the most complex matters is essential, such as tax groups, files that due to their amount and the presence of intent may be considered tax crimes, or those that refer to the assessment of related-party transactions in international contexts.

When fraud is carried out by criminal networks or organisations that systematically and professionally commit tax crimes, the Department has the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF) which specialises in combating these frauds.

In order to address the problems arising from the growing fiscal challenges resulting from globalization and the digitalization of the economy and the necessary changes in the regulations governing international taxation, the Inspection Department has a specialized Office for International Taxation (ONFI) where these issues are addressed.

With the experience gained over the 30 years since the creation of the Tax Agency, the Inspection Department has a flexible structure and a group of officials that allow it to ensure, with 21st century tools, that the tax compliance problems that plague the Spanish tax system are reduced every day.