Tax Newsletter - December 2018 | Miscellaneous

The penalty regime in relation to form 720 (to report assets and rights held outside of Spain) is disproportionate

Reasoned opinion of the European Commission in infringement procedure 2014/4330

As we reported in our Alert (El régimen sancionador del modelo 720 (declaración de bienes y derechos en el extranjero) es desproporcionado), the European Commission opened an infringement procedure against Spain (procedure number 2014/4330) in relation to the penalty regime for failing to file or filing late or incorrectly Form 720 to report assets and rights held outside of Spain.

In the reasoned opinion arising from this procedure, issued on February 2017, but disclosed recently, the Commission concluded that the Spanish legislation infringes the free movement of people and workers, the freedom of establishment, the freedom to provide services and the free movement of capital, to the extent that it establishes a discriminatory and disproportionate tax reporting system, and called on Spain to adopt the necessary measures to remedy this circumstance within two months from the date of receiving the opinion.

The directive harmonizing and simplifying certain rules in the value added tax system for the taxation of trade between member states has been published

As we reported in our VAT Alert 4-2018, Council Directive 2018/1910 of 4 December 2018 (published in the Official Journal on December 7, 2018) has introduced new value added tax legislation to simplify and harmonize certain rules, specifically, those concerning sales of call-off stock, “chain sales” and a few elements related to application and proof of the exemption for supplies of goods to another member state.

See our Alert for further details.

The transposition of these rules into national law must be done for them to take effect on January 1, 2020.