Have you made the income statement, have you made an error in any of your data and have you been penalized by the Tax Agency with 150 euros? Have you declared the annual VAT summary and have you made a mistake? It is not uncommon to find this situation, on the contrary. Taxpayers who have not correctly confirmed the data in the draft or who have simply misrepresented some information. There is no intention to defraud, but the fine is inevitable. Until now. The Treasury is finalizing the elimination of these infractions in what is called the implementation of the right to error.
At this time, the general rule indicates that anyone who makes an involuntary error in their tax return must pay a fixed financial penalty of 150 euros, to which late-payment interest must be added in case of delays. If the ruling is made due to an incomplete declaration, the fine amounts to 250 euros. In the case of VAT, the penalty for a mere oversight is also 150 euros. Whether or not there is an intention to defraud the treasury, the sanction is inevitable. If the administration loses money, the fine is even higher in a wide range of sanctions contemplated in the General Tax Law.
But the Treasury is studying and has advanced to end this system of fines in informative tax returns. Specifically, the ministry is checking the legal and technical feasibility of this legal change so that this right to make mistakes protects these clueless citizens, who have no intention of committing irregularities.
Specifically, the management department of the Tax Agency wants to introduce a model for assessing the conduct of taxpayers when they make minor and involuntary errors when making their declaration and do not cause harm to the administration, advanced this Monday the Director of the Tax Agency, Soledad Fernández, in an appearance in the Congress of Deputies.
"We are aware that, despite all the information and assistance tools, it is inevitable that small errors, oversights or incorrect interpretations of the rule will occur, which translate into small non-compliances", indicate sources from the Tax Agency.
In this sense, the Treasury is advancing in a system that allows the taxpayers themselves to correct their own returns easily and quickly when the Tax Agency informs them of the possibility that they have made a small error or incorrectness.
The objective is to implement these changes throughout 2023, before the end of the legislature, since tax experts have been proposing the measure for months and which is also included in the white paper for tax reform. The Government, therefore, is sensitive to this demand and is willing to incorporate it.
The Tax Agency is working to introduce more innovations in the tax circuit. The maxim is to "encourage voluntary compliance" with tax obligations and to offer the taxpayer direct and easier access to the treasury, aware of the difficulties that many citizens have in their relationship with the tax administration.
In this sense, and in full fiscal debate, the Treasury is going to launch a tax or "spending" calculator. In this way, on the Agency's website it will be possible to consult the contribution to public spending of each citizen based on their income. That is, how much it contributes to financing health or education.
Fernández has also advanced that the offices of the Tax Agency will have preferential attention in person for the elderly, being able to be attended even without a prior appointment.
