Directives of the Annual Tax Control Plan

• Control over electronic commerce platforms will be tightened in parallel with the implementation in 2021 of the new European VAT rules on the matter.
• The appearances in business premises will continue as an essential element of control, combining the rights of the taxpayer with the inspection powers
• The Collection area will carry out a special control of the 'convenient' ownership of the point-of-sale terminals to fight against the placement of POS terminals in the name of third parties in order to avoid embargoes.
• In the field of the fight against drug trafficking and smuggling, artificial intelligence will be promoted for asset analysis and money laundering investigations.
• A new computer tool will make it possible to predict certain errors in the Income Tax return and notify taxpayers who decide to modify certain pre-filled boxes in the draft of these possible errors.

February 1, 2021 .- The Tax Agency will promote in 2021 a specific line to strengthen the control of natural persons who appear to be non-residents in Spain. The possibility of reinforced control through massive data analysis tools represents a novelty in the field of relevant 'delocalized' assets and marks a new impetus for the tax verification of this taxpayer profile.

The project appears in the 2021 Tax Control Plan, whose general guidelines are published today in the Official State Gazette in a context of relevant regulatory developments. Thus, the Tax Administration will manage two new tax figures, the Tax on Certain Digital Services and the Tax on Financial Transactions; Added to this is the foreseeable incorporation of the electronic commerce package ('e-commerce package') with important management innovations in the payment of VAT for electronic commerce platforms.

Likewise, the guidelines take note that strengthening the prevention and fight against fraud constitutes one of the basic components of the structural reforms to support the National Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. One of its basic pillars will be the approval of the draft Law on measures to prevent and combat tax fraud published in the Cortes Bulletin on October 23 and its effective application as of its entry into force.

The impact of the health crisis

On the other hand, the Control Plan guidelines take into account the impact of the health crisis on the Agency's planning in 2020 and, possibly, also 2021. Thus, the consolidation and modulation of lines of action that could have been affected by the pandemic last year, in the case of the in-person visit plan, is proposed.

Control of the fiscal risks of those taxpayers who have been least affected by the economic effects of COVID-19 will also be prioritized, logically maintaining an adequate general level of control, given the need to combine attention to situations of lack of liquidity. with the obligation to verify years prior to the crisis within the limitation period. Likewise, the increase in negative tax bases pending compensation doubly justifies the continuation of the special plan for reviewing pending bases initiated last year.

The pandemic has also affected multiple aspects of business operations that the Control Plan guidelines take into consideration. Among them, we can highlight its impact on the transfer prices (intragroup) of multinationals, or the effect that mobility restrictions have had on consumer habits, generating a strong rebound in online commerce. All of this has its implications for the purposes of tax control, which will be appropriately analyzed by the Tax Agency.

Emergence of 'dislocalized' heritage

Within the scope of asset analysis, the control work on large fortunes promoted by the Central Coordination Unit for the Control of Relevant Assets of the National Fraud Investigation Office will continue, but this year a specific line of control is also established from 'big data' tools on taxpayers with relevant assets who 'relocalize' their residence, pretending that they are abroad when the Tax Agency understands that they really reside in Spain.

Throughout the past year, the residence analysis was systematically established on a large group of taxpayers who appear as non-residents in the tax databases. This analysis has facilitated obtaining the necessary evidence to determine the residence in our country of some of these relevant assets, which will allow, starting in 2021, to intensify the control actions of relocated citizens.

International taxation

In the field of international taxation, this year the development of the new automated transfer pricing risk analysis system will be completed, an analysis that will also be reinforced by information on potentially aggressive cross-border tax planning mechanisms ( Directive 'DAC6').

At the same time, the role of facilitating inspections by the National Office of International Taxation, ONFI, will be maintained, and in 2021 a specific campaign will be carried out to verify adequate compliance with information obligations on related-party transactions.

The focus will also be maintained on the identification of structures and patterns of behavior that unduly benefit from the low taxation of tax havens and preferential regimes, and that can be or will be replicated or standardized for use by a plurality of taxpayers.

Combating the underground economy

Within the actions to be carried out within the framework of the fight against the underground economy, and as an essential element of fiscal control, the usual appearances will continue to be carried out in the business premises of the taxpayers for cases in which there are signs of non-compliance. are presented with greater clarity, taking into account both the legal and regulatory rules in force, as well as their interpretation by the judicial bodies, and combining in a balanced way the rights of taxpayers with the inspection powers.

Likewise, priority attention will continue to be paid to the use of computer equipment and programs that allow and facilitate the alteration of accounting records of all types, and joint work will be considered with associations of companies specialized in the development or marketing of management software, as a way to prevent systems that allow the suppression of sales from being developed, disseminated, marketed, downloaded or used in the business environment.

At the same time, and in the context of the permanent dialogue with the representative organizations of the self-employed and SMEs, provided for in the Agency's Strategic Plan, work will be done on the incorporation of new groups with economic activity (business or professional) to the sending plan. of 'calculated ratios of economic activity' contrasted with the ratios that the Agency considers representative of the corresponding sector and economic segment.

On the other hand, the jurisprudential support for the Labor Inspection minutes in which the services provided by supposedly self-employed workers to companies in various sectors are classified as dependent labor benefits, allows the Tax Agency to regularize the different tax contingencies in VAT and personal income tax derived from this review in the declared qualifications.

e-commerce

In relation to online commerce, the Agency will intensify its control, both from the perspective of direct and indirect taxation, carrying out a cooperative approach, when possible, to determine the most appropriate way to access the necessary information of electronic commerce platforms or, if this is not possible, enforcing the general information obligations provided by law and the sanctioning regime for non-compliance.

The aim is to ensure the complete tax identification of those taxpayers who, even though they are not domiciled in Spain, carry out the VAT taxable event on their sales to final consumers located in our country.

In parallel with the implementation in 2021 of the regulatory measures derived from the 'e-commerce' package, and to ensure their proper application, the Inspection area will tighten control over electronic commerce platforms to prevent this type of operations from being able to evade the payment of the tax obligations that correspond to them, in particular, for the purposes of indirect taxation.

In conjunction with this, the abuse of direct postal shipments to the consumer on a non-commercial basis from third countries will be a priority objective in collaboration with the Customs and Excise area, who, in parallel, will promote the use of 'data mining' techniques to complement the traditional analysis and control of foreign trade after import in order to prevent the avoidance of import tariffs and VAT.

And, finally, the debates at the European Union level on the establishment of obligations to obtain and exchange information on electronic commerce platforms (future 'DAC 7') should represent a step forward in ensuring appropriate taxation of electronic commerce. to legality and analogous to that of conventional commerce.

The work of collecting, systematizing and analyzing the information obtained about cryptocurrencies will also continue to be promoted, in order to facilitate the control actions of the correct taxation of the operations carried out and the knowledge of the funds used in the acquisition of these virtual currencies.

Fight against drug trafficking and smuggling

In the field of the fight against drug trafficking and other illicit activities, the implementation of advanced technologies based on artificial intelligence, 'big data' and data mining will be promoted to reinforce the investigations of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency in matters asset analysis and money laundering.

At this point, the Campo de Gibraltar area is a priority, in which operational actions will be carried out in coordination with the rest of the police and judicial authorities, in application of the Campo de Gibraltar Special Plan. Operational and maritime surveillance actions that have been reinforced by the legal prohibition of 'narco-boats' will also continue.

The Customs Surveillance Central Maritime Intelligence Office, together with its regional structure, will develop new actions to achieve exhaustive knowledge of the port domain and public-private collaboration actions with the different authorities to have greater control over the entries and exits of the boats in the different marinas.

In the area of tobacco, legal measures will be promoted that allow for improved control and surveillance of the circulation and sale of tobacco leaves for illicit purposes and, within the framework of the cooperation instruments agreed upon with the United Kingdom for their application in Gibraltar, collaboration with the Gibraltar authorities in the fight against smuggling will be promoted.

In turn, Customs Surveillance will continue to have priority in supporting actions to combat the most complex tax fraud in all its phases, especially in the case of actions that require the use of judicial police techniques or powers in support to the ONIF and the Collection Area.

Fraud in the collection phase

Along with priorities already common in the field of control in the collection phase, such as asset monitoring of debtors convicted of crimes, or the assumption of precautionary measures to avoid asset depletion, this year the investigation work that gives rise to referrals of liability to third parties will be reinforced with special control of 'convenience' ownership of point-of-sale terminals; That is, those cases in which the TPVs are placed under the ownership of a person other than the debtor, hiding them to avoid seizure actions.

On the other hand, work will continue this year to implement the so-called 'NRC online', a new system for recording and monitoring income managed through collaborating entities that will lead to immediate knowledge of this information, facilitating the work of monitoring and control of debts.

Boost in attendance: predict errors in income

In the line marked by the Agency's Strategic Plan of introducing improvements in tax compliance through assistance and prevention, the Annual Control Plan introduces a novelty of relevance in the area of personal income tax that, foreseeably, can be implemented now. underway in the next Income Campaign: the creation of a tool to predict errors in the declaration and warn the taxpayer of them.

Using machine learning techniques based on regularizations from previous years, the new tool will make a selection of taxpayers who may make mistakes in certain boxes in the work income section (in the future the scope could be expanded to other sections of the declaration) to notify them of this possible error if they decide to modify the draft offered by the Agency and thus avoid a possible subsequent regularization.

In parallel, the Income campaign will include improvements in the securities portfolio program and in property amortizations, while small business owners and professionals will be provided with the automatic transfer of personal income tax registration books to the declaration.

Also in the field of assistance, the Control Plan guidelines provide for the effective implementation of the Comprehensive Digital Assistance Administrations, the ADIs. After a pilot test carried out in the fourth quarter of last year, the launch of these platforms aimed at providing information and assistance services by electronic means through the use of different virtual communication channels is consolidated.

Likewise, the scope of the VAT draft will be extended to more groups, the VAT assistants in operation will be reinforced and new census assistance tools will be created, while, in the area of Collection, a telematic assistance system will be promoted. in payment to the taxpayer.

At the same time, to improve, simplify and modernize the information and communication with taxpayers, work is being done to modify the structure of the Tax Agency's website, in such a way that, with a user-directed approach, the information from the Tax Agency will be integrated. Internet Portal and the processing of the Agency's Electronic Headquarters.