Mediation and good practices in the tax field have been sponsored by the Academy for decades. These well-intentioned messages, with a somewhat provincial tinge, seek to replicate in Spain a methodology for applying taxes that works perfectly in other more civilized states.
However, they usually start from an erroneous premise, which is believed to be apodictically true, such as that the tax administration looks after the general interest and is at the service of the citizen. Of course, that is the wording of the mandate that appears in our constitutional text, and a purpose that should be inalienable in every public entity, but it is far from being the current practice in Spain.
The implementation, a few years ago, of the Code of Good Practices, was an example of this: instead of seeking consensus to configure a regulation that would benefit both parties, professionals and Administration, they wanted to impose said code under the threat of all the penalties of hell to any association or professional that dares to remain outside its application spectrum.
In the not too distant future, probably in the first self-respecting tax reform, we will see how those advisors who have left the fold of the code are penalized, generating different typologies of professionals not based on their professional or academic excellence – as occurs in other more advanced countries, thus avoiding the intrusion that we suffer – but of their capacity for submission to the administrative yoke.
Following this trail of “soft” imposition of a single reality, we find a novel practice, such as including on the AEAT website some supposedly informative texts that, in reality, involve critical analyzes of the regulations.
Let’s look at a couple of examples of this malpractice: Tax Agency: On civil actions and the best collection defense of public credit Tax Agency: The AEAT and its power to resort to the most effective route to satisfy the tax credit.
To the layman, these texts may seem like thoughtful studies on technical aspects that seek to offer legal security to the taxpayer. Nothing could be further from the truth. These pompously written writings, which could be published anywhere other than the website of a public entity funded by our taxes, are a means of counteracting doctrinal opinions contrary to administrative practice on the issues at hand.
If we did not live in a country in which professionals in the sector suffer from learned helplessness, that is, a whole Stockholm syndrome, it would be a scandal if an official website included such subjective and criticizable content, giving the appearance of information and assistance to the contributing to what, in reality, is one (more) way to trample on dissenting opinions.
If the leaders of the AEAT were ashamed, they should immediately eliminate these texts. But those same leaders are the ones who, according to what the president of the Transparency and Good Government Council recently said in parliament, show absolute disloyalty by consistently failing to comply with the resolutions of said body.
The situation is so serious that it has even called for a legal reform that allows public organizations that fail to comply with firm resolutions on public information requested by citizens to be fined. When I read such statements I was reminded of two close issues in which the AEAT has recently restricted information and put all the obstacles in the world to the CTBG in its daily work.
The first of them is even reflected in a lament included in the organization’s own resolution. I transcribe it literally: “Before examining the merits of the matter, it is necessary to point out that the claimed body – which was the AEAT – has not responded to this Council’s request to send the file nor has it presented the requested allegations.
This procedure must be censured because it makes it difficult to fulfill the function entrusted to this Independent Administrative Authority by not providing it with its opinion on the arguments on which the claim is based, so that it can have all the necessary elements of judgment to properly assess the concurrent circumstances and rule on whether or not to grant access to the requested information.”
The second, which I will expand on in another article because it is still sub iudice in a contentious court, the appellant – which was me – received a resolution partially approving the aforementioned CTBG that the AEAT, intentionally, executed in a tortuous, biased and partially, with the obvious objective of forcing (this) citizen to prosecute the matter, waiting for it to make him give up his attempt to obtain the personal data of the official responsible for a specific file.
Faced with the appeal filed against the Council for such fraudulent execution, in which it was requested to act firmly in the face of the misuse of power and the unfair actions of the AEAT, the aforementioned body launched the lament that is now reflected in the words of its president in its public statements.
Namely: “The execution of the resolution corresponds to the body to which it is addressed, as long as it has the requested information and is responsible for it. (…) Likewise, it is reported that in the event that the compliance provided by the “obliged body does not satisfy the claims of the claimant, Spanish law does not attribute to the CTBG coercive powers to impose forced compliance with its resolutions.”
It will not be idle to specify that, behind all this network of opacity, there is a public complaint for tax evasion by a politician who governed part of the territory of the State.
In short, the above is a series of empirical samples that we live in a country in which the most important Administration that manages our tax system tries to impose, by threat, a tax relationship based on “good practices” that it itself denies. to continue in its relationship with other administrations.
An Administration that tries to ensure that there is a single, immovable interpretation of taxes, using means paid by the citizen to create that uniform vision. An Administration that decisively and with impunity fails to comply with the resolutions of another public body, showing arrogance and disloyalty inappropriate for an entity theoretically vicarious of the general interest.
An Administration, in short, that laughs in the face of the citizen as when, representing the AEDAF, attending a meeting with its general director, after the TS ruled that it was illegal to force the electronic submission of personal income tax indiscriminately. , his first words were these: “Well, what happens now? You created the problem and now you’re here to solve it?”
Seeing is believing.
#Good #practices #AEAT
