Operation 'Scarpe II'

• More than 170 Agency officials have visited 41 manufacturers and businesses in the sector, at the same time initiating inspections of 74 companies and 29 related individuals.
• Previous actions allowed the investigators to determine that the companies affected by today's operation made black sales to other companies in the sector.

March 3, 2020 .- Today the Tax Agency has started a large coordinated operation in eight Autonomous Communities against tax fraud in the footwear sector. The operation, called 'Scarpe II', entails the initiation of inspections of 74 companies and 29 related individuals (partners, administrators and people in the family environment), through the appearance of officials from the Agency's Inspection area in 41 premises of this sector.

The operation especially affects footwear manufacturers, but also, to a lesser extent, retailers. The device that has been deployed reaches locations located in Andalusia (1), Aragon (12), Asturias (2), the Canary Islands (3), Castilla-La Mancha (4), Galicia (1), La Rioja (8) and Valencian Community (10).

'Scarpe II' has been coordinated by the Department of Financial and Tax Inspection, with the participation of 157 officials from the Inspection Area, including personnel from the Computer Audit Units (UAI), as well as the support of police and security agents. 15 Customs Surveillance officials from the Tax Agency.

Joint annual turnover of 240 million

The inspections that began today, and will continue in the coming months, have their origin at the beginning of last year, when a series of investigations carried out by the Tax Agency in the sector show that the majority of the companies affected by this operation were making sales in 'B' to other companies in the sector.

Altogether, the companies that have now begun to be inspected have a declared annual turnover of 240 million euros. In the previous investigations, no correspondence was found between these declared amounts and the entries registered in the bank accounts of the companies now under inspection.

With the appearances carried out today at the different premises, the Agency intends to directly access the documentation and real existing accounting or auxiliary information, including the computer information processing systems, with the aim of confirming and quantifying the volume of undeclared activity by companies and, where appropriate, detect the possible existence of computer programs to hide sales and irregular billing schemes.

The actions will also be directed at people from the corporate and family environment of the inspected companies, people who present external signs of wealth that are not consistent with the income they have been declaring, and who in certain cases, also appear or were listed as holders of contracts. rental of safe deposit boxes in financial institutions that will now be preventively sealed by investigators.

The background of 'Scarpe'

Today is the second time in which the Tax Agency carries out a large coordinated operation aimed at the footwear sector. Already in 2014, the 'Scarpe' operation was carried out, in which appearances were carried out in 29 establishments belonging to 11 companies in the sector, mainly retailers.

Although 'Scarpe II' has no significant connections with that operation, the Agency's successive control plans have been underlining the convenience of reviewing tax behavior in sectors where it has observed tax compliance problems, in order to verify whether tax behavior they have improved.

In line with the guidelines of the Tax Control Plan of previous years and those approved for the 2020 financial year, with these coordinated sectoral operations –with Scarpe II there are already 19 in recent years in various sectors of activity–, in addition to facilitating the detection and regularization of tax fraud, the Tax Agency also seeks to transmit a dissuasive message to the groups involved in these practices, which have an impact on public coffers and seriously distort competition in the sector itself.