Operation 'Columba'

• More than 270 Agency officials have visited 76 premises located in 14 autonomous communities after obtaining evidence of undeclared activity, under-the-table payments to workers, and have detected the existence of software to conceal sales in some cases.
• The operation has led to the start of inspection actions in relation to 77 companies and 40 related individuals.
• This represents the 21st coordinated sectoral macro-operation carried out by the Agency in the last decade, which to date have resulted in the liquidation of more than 370 million euros to 1,825 taxpayers.

October 20, 2022 .- The Tax Agency has launched more than a hundred inspections of 77 companies and 40 individuals linked to the courier and parcel franchise sector after the appearance, yesterday, of more than 270 Agency officials in a total of 76 premises of this sector distributed in 14 Autonomous Communities.

The inspections, which will be carried out in the coming months based on this initial collection of evidence, will analyse cases of undeclared activity, under-the-table payments to franchise employees and the use of computer programmes to conceal sales in order to defraud (dual-use software that has already been detected in some of the appearances made yesterday).

The operation, called 'Columba', involves the start of inspections of companies and related individuals (partners, directors and people from the family environment), through the appearance of officials from the Inspection area of the Agency in premises located in Andalusia (6), Aragon (3), Asturias (1), Canary Islands (3), Cantabria (3), Castilla-La Mancha (1), Castilla y León (5), Catalonia (11), Extremadura (1), Galicia (10), Madrid (9), Murcia (3) La Rioja (2) and the Valencian Community (18).

'Columba' has been coordinated by the Tax and Financial Inspection Department of the Tax Agency, with the participation of more than 260 officials from the Inspection Area, including staff from the Computer Audit Units (UAI), as well as with the support of police officers and 14 officials from the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency.

'Dual-use' software

The inspections that began yesterday and will continue over the next few months have their origin in previous complaints related to the courier and parcel sector, which brought to the attention of the Tax Agency various cases of concealment of economic activity and "under the table" payments to workers, linked to cash invoicing and with the help of sales concealment software, or "dual use". In fact, the existence and use of these programs by some of the companies inspected was confirmed during the inspections carried out yesterday.

The general guidelines of the Agency's Tax Control Plan for 2022 focus, among other objectives, on the fight against 'dual-use' software, in parallel with the processing of the Regulation that governs the requirements that billing computer systems must adopt to guarantee the integrity, conservation, accessibility, legibility, traceability and inalterability of billing records, in accordance with the provisions of the General Tax Law.

By visiting the selected premises yesterday, the Agency has been able to directly access the existing accounting or auxiliary documentation and information, including the computer systems for processing information, in order to confirm and quantify the volume of undeclared activity by the companies and, where appropriate, confirm the possible existence of computer programs for concealing sales and irregular billing schemes.

The actions are also aimed at people from the corporate and family environment of the inspected companies who present external signs of wealth that are inconsistent with the income they have declared.

According to the annual report on the postal sector by the National Commission on Markets and Competition, more than 60% of the 2,177 operators registered in the Postal Registry operate under the franchise regime or similar links. This type of franchise delivery company is the one targeted by the 'Columba' operation, at a time of strong growth in the courier and parcel sector due to the rise of electronic commerce in the Spanish market.

Sectoral macro-operations

Operation 'Columba' is the 21st coordinated sectoral macro-operation carried out by the Agency in the last decade, which to date have resulted in the liquidation of more than 370 million euros to 1,825 taxpayers. This type of action, in addition to facilitating the detection and regularisation of tax fraud, makes it possible to send a dissuasive message to the groups involved in these practices, which have an impact on public coffers and seriously distort competition in the affected sector itself.