Two out of three tax advisers say that their clients' tax relocations to other countries have increased just as the new tax on large fortunes came into effect, which partially standardizes the taxation of wealth between communities. The data is taken from the survey carried out by the Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB-UB) which annually asks almost 5,000 tax advisers about the tax situation in Spain.
This tax equates the payment of taxes of large estates throughout Spain from 3.7 million. On the consequences of this measure, the prosecutors maintain that it will encourage relocation outside of Spain and discourage the one that had been taking place between autonomous communities. Before this tax, in Madrid and Andalusia nothing was paid for assets as it was 100% subsidized.
From the responses of tax experts, it can be inferred that this process of flight of tax domiciles in search of an improvement in taxation will continue. Almost 70% of the advisors state that their clients' inquiries about changes of residence have increased. The most serious thing is that more than 40% maintain that the majority of tax residence changes abroad are fictitious. When it is within Spain, the percentage that believes that the change is false is even higher.
Jose María Durán-Cabré, director of the IEB co-author of the survey along with Alejandro Esteller Moré, maintains that it is feasible that the increase in trips abroad is due to the new tax. The UB professor adds that this process of increased flight of taxpayers has been maintained throughout the four years that the survey has been carried out.
The IEB survey was published yesterday by the Registry of Fiscal Advisory Economists (REAF), a body specializing in taxation of the General Council of Economists (CGE).
The respondents, when asked about their perception of the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT), consider that it is an entity "with very advanced technological means that tends to apply taxes with predominantly collection criteria". In this sense, those surveyed underlined "the harshness of the verification procedures and, especially, those of management".
In the same act, the REAF opined that the increase in corporate tax collection of 20.84% in 2022 is mainly thanks to the evolution of business profits. The increase in tax revenue not only exceeds that of the year before the pandemic (2019), but also (by 50%) that of 2007.
