The Tax Inspectors have announced today that they will use all legal means at their disposal to prevent the division of the Tax Agency, considering that this action will lead to an increase in tax fraud.
After the implementation by the Generalitat of Catalonia of the program for the fiscal independence of Catalonia, the inspectors denounce that the transfer of the Inspection of the taxes borne in Catalonia would pose many problems, especially for taxpayers with a medium or large size, to the extent that they carry out operations throughout Spanish territory, or even internationally. This implies that many elements could not be verified because they are outside the jurisdiction of the Catalan Tax Agency.
Ana de la Herrán, president of the Association of State Treasury Inspectors (IHE), stated today that “We are alarmed at the serious consequences that would occur in the AEAT and in the management of taxesif the economic agreement regime for Catalonia is carried out, agreed between the PSC and ERC, which has the approval of the Government. This is a bankruptcy of the tax system. After this action there will be the reaction of the rest of the communities who will also want similar treatment.”
“IHE has spoken out against a new Economic Agreement regime with Catalonia, although the Government does not want to call it that, because, in addition to not being regulated in the Constitution, it would cause serious damage in the application of the tax system and in the fight against tax fraud, and because it would mean the division of the AEAT, as it disappears from that territory,” explained Ana de la Herrán.
José María Peláez, spokesman for the Association, considers that “it would be desirable for the Government not to use the AEAT as a bargaining chip in negotiations whose main objective is for Catalonia to achieve fiscal independence. It is necessary to see if this action is covered by the Constitution, but if carried out it will have as a more serious consequence the disappearance of the AEAT of said territory, starting a path of no return with serious harm to citizens“.
The Secretary of State’s response
For his part, Jesús Gascón, Secretary of State who closed the XXXIV Congress of Treasury Inspectors, explained, in response to the demands of the Treasury inspectors, that the Commission of Experts created yesterday within the Generalitat “has to make proposals and we will see what happens. We are going to find a balanced group of technicians. He has also explained that tax administrations that work alone are doomed to failure. For this reason, he stated that “”We have to network with the Administrations. “Economies of scale are decisive.”
The response follows the same line of prudence demanded by the director of the AEAT, Soledad Fernández Doctor, in her speech yesterday in Congress, pointed out that the state Agency must continue to have management of the tax system in the future, which is what it is. is perfectly compatible with advancing and improving in terms of cooperation, co-responsibility and institutional loyalty between the different levels of the tax administration».
However, in a document published on the occasion of this XXXIV Congress of Treasury Inspectors, officials explain that the existence of The well-known regional regimes generate control difficulties that imply the existence of several tax administrations in a single market. and, no matter how many collaboration agreements are signed with provincial councils, if certain information is not in the system, the same applications are not used or control procedures are not designed and developed in an integrated manner, effectiveness is lost and facilities for those who plan criminal actions or tax non-compliance.
Loss of contributions for the CCAA
Furthermore, he explained that if carried out, they would not only have regulatory capacity and would collect 100% from Companies, but they would go from a current collection of 26,000 million euros to 53,000 million, meaning that the State would have less funds to attend to their activities. This situation will affect the financing of the CCAA. In addition, he explained that around 16 inspection plans for large assets that are being carried out to detect tax fraud, such as in In the case of procedures for detecting the residence of those who appear to live abroad, their effectiveness would be rendered impossible.. Last year, throughout Spanish territory, a total of 27.7 million euros were settled to taxpayers who were artificially located in other countries.
Furthermore, they defend that the information system must be unique, since with the division of the Tax Agency (AEAT) it will be impossible to carry out the Immediate Information System (SII) of the VAT for companies domiciled in Catalonia. It will also not be possible to maintain the current speed in the return of income tax returns, as the single fund is divided.
The Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) would have to require the collaboration of the State Agency to carry out practically any inspection, because it will not be able to verify operations carried out outside Catalonia, nor material elements located outside the Autonomous Community (for example, see if there is a warehouse or not), nor require information from taxpayers not established in Catalonia… Consequently, the investigation capacity would be very limited compared to the current inspection bodies of the AEAT in Catalonia..
Delays in inspection procedures
The IHE points out that the ATC would be obliged to “entrust” this work to the State Agency, and that would always generate delays, since the inspection bodies of the AEAT have their own Inspection plans, which would make the work they carry out for other than the one that is carried out first. That is to say, it is to be expected that the ATC Inspections, if they intend to have a level of quality similar to those currently carried out by the State Agency, will be carried out in much longer periods of time, to the detriment of the rights of taxpayers.
The problem worsens when we refer to the control of multinational companies, since the exploitation of information and control actions must be carried out on a national basis. There are currently 124 multinationals in Spain that have a turnover of more than 750 million euros annually, which have 14,700 subsidiaries, of which 9,800 are foreign.
Shielding of the State Tax Agency
The inspectors consider that It is necessary to approve the Statute of the AEAT, which regulates a regime of autonomy and independence from political power and that all tax administrations – state, regional and local – participate in its organizational structure.
Also, the president of the IHE has referred and explained that the Government’s human resources policy, not only refers to the increase in its personnel, but also to the essential specialization and training of its officials. Thus, he said that “the Association considers that the new selection and training measures that the Government intends to implement are detrimental to the professionalism and independence of officials, and will cause, in the future, worse services provided to citizens.”
And finally, the IHE highlights in the document published in Congress lThe need for the AEAT to face new technological challenges, such as the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in its actionsto improve the services it provides to citizens and the fight against tax fraud.
One more challenge would refer to the need to solve the structural and personnel problems that have been having a negative impact for years in the actions carried out by the Economic-Administrative Courts and by the General Directorate of Taxes, none of the proposals that have been raised by the IHE in this regard having materialized.
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