Treasury collected 437 million from high wealth funds fighting fraud

August 24, 2021

According to Economía Digital, the Treasury succeeded in obtaining 437 million euros of high-wealth funds fighting fraud in 2020, 28% less, and another 130 million euros from large technology multinationals.

Fighting fraud of high-wealth funds is one of the main targets of the Tax Agency, existing several progressing tools to collect debts of these taxpayers in recent years, which has been paralyzed and damaged with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the aforementioned, the control carried out concerning individuals holding high-wealth of individuals led last year to settle the debt for 437 million euros to this profile of taxpayer, as reflected in the results of the 2020 AEAT (Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria – State Tax Administration Agency) Tax Control Plan, representing a decrease of 28% compared to the previous year, but an increase of 25% compared to figures from two years ago in 2018, the note noted.

As noted, among the improving tools to collect is Big Data analysis. According to Economía Digital, the main novelty in this area is the development of a new tool in 2020 based on “big data” analysis for the detection of false non-residents with relevant wealth. Verification actions started on 126 taxpayers last year based on this tool.

On the other hand, the tax administration continues to work on the catalogue of more than 570 suppliers of luxury goods and services, considered by the Unit as possible associated to taxpayers with very high economic capacity. In addition, the investigation into opaque companies is making it possible to automatically identify users of high-value homes located in Spain whose ownership is held by foreign companies whose real owners are unknown, initiating verifications related to this information.

It was initially indicated the Tax Agency’s achievement regarding the collection of taxes on large technology multinationals, as a result of the approval of the tax on certain technological services known as the “Google tax”.

This note ensured that tax bases exceeding 130 million euros were regularized in 2020, and the calculation of tax bases secured by prior valuation agreements (APAs) for the coming years has been verified upwards, raising the initial estimation of more than 500 million to more than 800 million euros.

Source: Economía Digital 23/08/21