Since its creation, the Tax Agency has established both the prevention and the fight against tax fraud as fundamental and permanent strategic objectives since its creation.

The 2020-2023 Strategic Plan, which, given its global vision and multi-year nature, is the central planning instrument of the Tax Agency, established the orientation of the Tax Agency's activity for these years. This Plan annually incorporates an addendum with new strategic objectives to keep it permanently updated.

Recently, by Resolution of February 6, 2023 of the General Directorate of the State Tax Administration Agency, the general guidelines of the Annual Tax and Customs Control Plan have been approved, detailing the priority actions to be carried out by the organization in the current fiscal year 2023, in line with what is established in the Strategic Plan and its addenda.

The general guidelines revolve around five major pillars:

• Information and assistance.

• Prevention of non-compliance. Promoting voluntary compliance and fraud prevention.

• The investigation and verification actions of tax and customs fraud.

• Control of fraud in the collection phase.

• The collaboration between the Tax Agency and the tax administrations of the Autonomous Communities.

The first of the aforementioned pillars establishes, for 2023, important improvements in the information and assistance service to taxpayers, not only in compliance with an obligation towards taxpayers, but with the conviction that the provision of this service constitutes the best way to prevent fraud, by facilitating compliance with tax obligations and minimizing the indirect costs associated with it.

The new information and assistance model promoted in these general guidelines, whose implementation is already taking place, integrates all existing information channels (in person, telephone and telematic) trying to make it easier for the citizen to decide the modality by which they want to be served within the offer available for each of the established services. In this sense, work is also being done to enhance and improve face-to-face care for older people, or people who may be affected by the digital divide.

Work is also being done on updating the Tax Agency's services menu, which will be available at the Electronic Headquarters and in the Tax Agency's offices, to improve the knowledge that citizens have of them and enable a taxpayer relationship. with the fastest, easiest and most effective Tax Agency.

Along these lines, a new appointment application has been launched at the Electronic Headquarters that uses more understandable language and presents simpler and more intuitive navigation. In addition to the existing appointment confirmation service obtained through SMS  and email, an appointment reminder service has been introduced to reiterate the assigned day and time well in advance.

Regarding the information and assistance tasks provided through telephone support, their provision is unified by promoting a single centralized service that will integrate all the services that were provided until now, stratifying the levels of assistance and improving the tools used, the systems identification and authentication and the quality of the information provided.

Other important improvements contemplated in the general guidelines of the Control Plan lie in the review of the criteria for imposing sanctions, the establishment of a new general policy for deferrals and installments and the implementation of new systems for the correction of small tax breaches in the Personal Income Tax.

Furthermore, with an eye on the next 2022 Income Campaign, improvements continue to be introduced in the WEB Income service, the "Income Informator" and the "Income Informator for economic activities" are perfected and decisive progress is being made in the design of the Virtual Income Assistant.

In relation to Corporate Tax, the general guidelines contemplate making more tax data available to taxpayers: data referring to tax credits from previous years pending application –calculated based on what was declared in previous years– and information on the accounting adjustments made the previous year.

Likewise, work will be done on the possibility of advancing refunds of Corporate Tax returns in the case of small and medium-sized companies.

Finally, the general guidelines of the Annual Tax and Customs Control Plan for 2023 include an important line of improvement of the administrative activity of the Tax Agency: the simplification of the most used administrative documents in the different areas that make up the Tax Agency.