The Catalan Tax Agency reveals €295 million in defrauded funds in 2024.

BarcelonaThe Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) has discovered €295 million in tax fraud in 2024, a 3.15% increase over the previous year. This figure, together with that for 2023, raises the amount defrauded in the last two years to €581 million, well above the fraud detected in the first two years of the previous plans, which began in 2015 and 2019. In the last decade, the ATC has uncovered a total of 2.

This year's data comes from the 2024 results report of the third plan for the prevention and reduction of tax fraud and the promotion of good tax practices 2023-2026. To uncover these nearly 300 million euros, the inspection, management, and collection departments carried out 52,933 fraud prevention and reduction actions, 2.8% fewer than in 2023 (54,544 actions). "Increasingly efficient data management has allowed the amount discovered to be greater with fewer actions than the previous year," the Government emphasized in a statement.

Inheritances, donations, and assets

The vast majority of the money uncovered (75%) last year corresponds to inheritance and gift taxes and wealth taxes. Specifically, 42% of the fraud comes from inheritance and gift taxes, at €124 million, and 33% from wealth taxes, at €97 million. Meanwhile, the tax on property transfers and documented legal acts, at €69 million, represents 23%, and the remaining taxes, at €5 million, account for 2% of the total.

Another practice the Catalan tax agency has focused on has been fictitious changes of residence. In total, 56 assessments have uncovered fraud totaling €15.5 million. Half of this, €8.5 million, has been attempted to be falsely located in other autonomous communities, and the remaining €7 million in other countries. For its part, the Tax Agency (ATC) has carried out eight liquidations related to undeclared assets located abroad, which have revealed a total of €0.3 million.

In parallel, the agency has been dedicated to carrying out activities related to tax awareness, such as the program of visits to educational centers, which this year reached 30, or conferences at university centers, with a total of 20. The ATC has also published open data from new research sets.

Payments with Bizum

And to make it easier for taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations, the Ministry has launched a mobile app that allows citizens to view information and complete tax transactions. This app has received 92,999 payments through the Bizum platform, which has raised €3.7 million, and 43,375 through the Postal Service, totaling €2.2 million.