Operation 'Columba'

• More than 270 Agency officials have visited 76 locations located in 14 Autonomous Communities after obtaining evidence of undeclared activity, 'B' payments to workers and have detected the existence of sales concealment software in some cases.
• The operation has led to the beginning of inspection actions in relation to 77 companies and 40 related individuals.
• With this there are 21 coordinated sectoral macro-operations deployed by the Agency in the last decade, which to date have resulted in the settlement of more than 370 million euros to 1,825 taxpayers

October 20, 2022 .- The Tax Agency has launched more than a hundred inspection checks on 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 in this sector distributed in 14 Autonomous Communities.

The inspections, which will be carried out in the coming months based on this initial evidence collection, will analyze cases of undeclared activity, payments in 'B' to franchise workers and the use of computer programs to conceal sales to defraud (software of 'dual use' that has already been detected in some of the appearances carried out yesterday).

The operation, called 'Columba', entails the initiation of inspections of companies and related individuals (partners, administrators and people in the family environment), through the appearance of officials from the Agency's Inspection area 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 Valencian Community (18).

'Columba' has been coordinated by the Financial and Tax Inspection Department of the Tax Agency, with the participation of more than 260 officials from the Inspection Area, including personnel from the Computer Audit Units (UAI), as well as 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 be carried out in the coming months, have their origin in previous complaints, related to the courier and parcel sector, which bring to the attention of the Tax Agency various cases of concealment of economic activity and payments in “B” to workers, linked to cash billing and with the help of sales concealment software, or 'dual use'. In fact, the existence and use of these programs by some of the inspected companies has already been corroborated in the presentations made 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 regulates the requirements that computer systems must adopt. of billing to guarantee the integrity, conservation, accessibility, legibility, traceability and unalterability of billing records, in accordance with the provisions of the General Tax Law.

With the appearances carried out yesterday at the selected premises, the Agency has been able to directly access the documentation and real existing accounting or auxiliary information, including the computer information processing systems, in order to confirm and quantify the volume of undeclared activity by companies and, where appropriate, confirm the possible existence of computer programs to conceal 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 not consistent with the income they have been declaring.

According to the annual report on the postal sector of the National Markets and Competition Commission, 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 companies 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

With the 'Columba' operation there are now 21 coordinated sectoral macro-operations deployed by the Agency in the last decade, which to date have resulted in the settlement of more than 370 million euros to 1,825 taxpayers. These types of actions, in addition to facilitating the detection and regularization of tax fraud, allow a dissuasive message to be transmitted to the groups involved in these practices, which have an impact on public coffers and seriously distort competition in the affected sector itself.