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Obligación de declarar bienes y derechos en el extranjero para residentes fiscales en España: perspectivas

Law 7/2012 for Anti-Fraud Prevention Act was published last 30th of October.

Resident taxpayers are obliged to report as of 1st of January 2013 foreign bank accounts, insurances, shares, real estate, etc., of which they are holders, beneficiaries or authorized. The declaration must be made within 1st of January and 31st of March of the following year to the one referring; thus the first declaration will be the one to be submitted from 1st of January 2013 to 31st of March 2013, related to year 2012. Penalties will be of 5.000 € per unreported item or set of items, with a minimum of 10.000 €.

Unreported foreign assets to be discovered by the Tax Office will be considered as unjustified capital gains, generated in the last tax year to ensure the application of the statute of limitation for tax collection. This type of capital gain will not be subject to taxation as saving income but as a regular one, applying the sliding scale which goes up to 52% (56% in Andalucia and Cataluña).

Penalties will be of 150% thus, virtually the taxpayer could lose all the funds that might be held in such unreported accounts.

The actual 4-year statute of limitation for tax collection will not apply on tax debts arisen from unreported income, when they are discovered by the Tax Authorities. Income and Capital Gain will be imputed to the mature tax year within the 4 years period and taxed accordingly, independently of the real date of generation (prior to the aforesaid 4 years period).

The draft of reform of the Criminal Code states that defraud of tax liabilities above 120.000 € will require that the taxpayer has not voluntary regularized the situation to be consider as criminal offense.

In the international scene, Spain is signing several exchange of information agreements with jurisdictions considered as tax havens or null-low taxation territories, and negotiating with others including Gibraltar.

Spain has already signed an agreement with USA within the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA), to allow automatic information exchange provided by US financial entities, through a standard procedure. Compliance with FACTA rules will give Spanish financial entities advantages such as a waiver of the 30% withholding tax on payments received by banks from US sources.

Switzerland has announced lift of bank secrecy and it is expected that will disclose to Spain data on bank accounts, as of January 1, 2013. The same will happen with other EU Countries, as reported by our GGI colleagues, such as United Kingdom: «UK residents with Swiss bank accounts should be aware that new taxation arrangements are scheduled to come into force on 1 January 2013. The new tax agreement between the UK and Switzerland means that account holders must either provide full details to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) or pay over a proportion of the money in their account and a future withholding tax.»

For more information, please check our last newsletter JC&A UPDATE REPORT 04.2012 clicking the link below:

https://www.jca-abogados.com/newsletter/JCA_UPDATE_REPORT_04.12.pdf

For further details about the Spain-US agreement, please check the link below:

http://www.minhap.gob.es/Documentacion/Publico/GabineteMinistro/Notas%20Prensa/News%20in%20English/26-07-12%20Nota%20FATCA.pdf