Spain has published the official Gazette regarding partial amendments of general tax law which was amended on 22 September, 2015 as a Law no.34/2015. The Law will enter into force on 12 October 2015 except for the obligation to keep specific electronic ledgers which will apply as from 1 January 2017.
A new law includes a provision concerning the requirement to identify the residence of persons holding or controlling certain financial accounts. In addition, it amends and adds new measures (provision 22) to the Spanish general tax law 58/2003 in order to implement FATCA and Common Reporting Standard (CRS) reporting requirements and a penalty regime.
According to the new measures, accounts opened as of 1 January 2016, both the FATCA and CRS rules grant account holders a period of 90 days in which to provide financial institutions with the required information regarding their tax residency and nationality. If the information is not provided within this period, the financial institution will be required to “block” the account and cannot make charges against or credits to, or perform any other operations on the account until such data is furnished.
Under the new Corporate Income Tax (CIT) law, the statute of limitations period of CIT years in which an entity has generated losses and tax credits has been extended to 10 years.
New time limits for the tax audit proceedings, the duration of inspection proceedings is extended so that the tax auditors have 18 months to process tax audit proceedings commencing as of 12 October 2015. This period is extended to 27 months where any of the following objective circumstances exist: Where the taxpayer’s annual turnover is equal to or greater than the threshold for the mandatory audit of its accounts;Where the taxpayer forms part of a group subject to the consolidated tax regime or the special regime governing groups of entities and such group is under tax audit. This 27-month deadline will also apply where tax audit proceedings take in several related taxpayers and such deadline is applicable to any of them individually.
The Law establishes that domestic economic or judicial procedures will be suspended if a tax treaty’s mutual agreement procedure has been initiated until such procedure has been resolved.
