Residents in Spain are required to declare their assets abroad
Spanish Royal Decree 1558/ 2012, published on 15 November 2012 introduces new reporting requirements for taxpayers residing in Spain: they should declare to the Spanish State tax authority rights and property, such as real estate, bank accounts, stocks, bonds and insurances, held or managed abroad.
This statement should be made exclusively by means of telematics through the Internet, transmitting it with an electronic signature produced when selecting a personal certificate installed in advance in the browser for this purpose. Application deadline is from 1st January to 31st March of the year following that to which the information relates, although the declaration for 2012 will take place during March and April 2013.
The information to be reported to the tax authorities on accounts in financial institutions located abroad includes the following items:
- Company name or full name of the bank or savings bank and location
- Full identification of accounts
- Date of opening or cancellation, or, where appropriate, date of issuance and withdrawal of the permit leading to the liability of the concerned reporter.
- And, logically, the balance of the accounts at 31 December, and the average balance for the last quarter of the year.
Anyway, no one is obliged to report on the status of the account, if the final balance on 31st December does not exceed, in total, EUR 50.000. The submission of this declaration in the following years will be only required when either of the joint balances of the accounts (the one at 31st December or the average one of the last quarter of the year) experiences an increase exceeding 20.000 euros.
A similar provision is established when the foreign assets are such as securities, stocks, mutual funds, life insurances or disability insurances and temporary or lifelong rents.
For real property located abroad, the information statement will contain the following data:
- Identification of the property with a brief specification of its typology, as will be defined by a future order of the competent Ministry.
- Location of the real estate: country or territory in which it is situated, city, street and number.
- Date of acquisition.
- Cost of acquisition.
In the case of timesharing contracts or similar arrangements and in case of usufruct rights the reporter should also indicate the value of the property on the 31st December. The applicable quantitative liability limits are the same as in the previous cases.
This obligation to declare assets is accompanied by a closer cooperation and a increased mutual assistance between tax authorities. We are going to discuss about that in a future article.
Carlos Prieto Cid
Tarracoiuris Abogados, Spanish Lawyers in Tarragona, Spain
Member of Eurojuris España, international network of Spanish Law Firms
