The Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) will focus its efforts this year on digital businesses, rentals, and the activity of... influencers. These are some of the guidelines included in the 2026 tax control plan published by the Official State Gazette (Official State Gazette) of this Thursday. One of the important elements for carrying out these actions is all the new financial information available to the Treasury, such as those related to the use of Bizum or cardsIn addition to the data provided by cross-border payment providers and e-commerce platforms, new financial reporting requirements have been added. This will allow for greater control over e-commerce activities and the concealment of payments and collections through so-called neobanks. (digital banks). Other activities that will warrant greater scrutiny by the Tax Agency include fraud by companies with high turnover and by individuals with "significant" assets. The plan anticipates increased oversight of the various business areas within the real estate sector, "in a context of market recovery after years of slowdown." One of the key aspects will be monitoring "the accurate valuation of properties in transfers, especially when related entities or corporate structures are involved."

The new income tax return campaign has already begun. In Catalonia, during the approximately three months it will last, the Tax Agency expects to refund 2,087 million euros to 2.2 million citizens. In contrast, the entity expects to collect 5,386 million euros from 1.9 million Catalans. The total amount of money that taxpayers will have to pay, therefore, increases by 15.6% compared to last year. Regarding wealth tax, the Tax Agency expects to collect 882 million euros. Thus, revenue from this tax will soar by 15.8% compared to what was collected last year, when the entity collected 761 million from Catalans. The number of declarations for this tax will also increase, going from 94,500 last year to more than 98,000 expected to be processed this year.

Catalonia is the major marijuana production center in Europe. It's grown in abandoned farmhouses in Les Garrigues, in the forests of Pallars, in abandoned industrial buildings in the Barcelona metropolitan area, and in houses built on the outskirts of many towns in La Selva. "In Vidreres and Maçanet, there are housing developments where every other house has a cannabis plantation inside," explain the police. However, despite Catalonia becoming the continent's main supplier, marijuana is now also arriving from abroad. The Spanish Tax Agency has seized 1,214 kilos of marijuana from Thailand and Canada at El Prat Airport and the Port of Barcelona. However, this figure doesn't include the 467 kilos that entered through the Port of Huelva and another 642 kilos that Canadian police seized at the Port of Montreal, which were also headed for Barcelona. This amounts to more than two tons of drugs seized in seven operations over the last six months.

For the past few weeks, concerns have been growing among SMEs and the self-employed regarding a new change in invoicing procedures. Starting next year, invoicing systems must comply with new standards to facilitate tax agency oversight and combat tax fraud. The system has been named Verifactu. Taking advantage of the 30th edition of the tax conference organized by the Professional Association of Tax Technicians of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands (APttCB), held this Thursday and Friday in Castelldefels, a tool for professionals based on artificial intelligence (AI) was presented. This tool helps resolve all questions related to Verifactu, which, in principle, is designed to facilitate the verification of an invoice by the Tax Agency. The AI-based tool, accessible to all professionals from both the APttCB and the Spanish Federation of Professional Associations of Tax Technicians and Tax Advisors (FETTAF), "will resolve any doubts related to Verifactu and will draw on queries and answers regarding the general topic of 'Taxes,'" explains Joan Torres, president of the APttCB and FETTAF. The tool's effectiveness is guaranteed by the fact that it contains the answers provided by the tax administration to all questions raised. Consequently, the advice on this matter will more closely align with the Tax Agency's criteria, he adds. During these two days of discussions, tax advisors debated tax policy and the management models of the Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) and the Balearic Islands Tax Agency (ATIB), among other topics.

Companies and self-employed workers are preparing for a new change in invoicing. Starting next year, the invoicing systems they use must comply with new standards to facilitate the Tax Agency's oversight and combat tax fraud. The new regulation aims to make it easier to prove that an invoice has been verified by the agency, hence its name: Verifactu.

You can contribute your tax contributions in one autonomous community, pay taxes in another, and use the public services of a third. I know the case, for example, of a person who is a real resident of Valladolid; there he contributes his tax contributions to his office, works there, and receives income and capital gains from the resources he uses. However, he is a tax resident in Madrid, where he owns an apartment as an investment and where he occasionally travels by high-speed train. He knows what he must do to justify this to the Tax Agency, to show that he lives in the Community of Madrid at least half the year, since he pays less income and assets there. Thus, the costs of the services related to his activity are borne by Castile and León, and the Community of Madrid collects the money. But his self-declared administrative residence is in Ibiza! He travels there during the summers and on more than one weekend, because he thus benefits from transport discounts that his tax contribution doesn't help finance. As an administrative resident in the Balearic Islands, this community receives the corresponding regional funding, based on the registered population. Therefore, his residence legal It's not really anywhere. It's not where it's listed, in Valladolid: there's no family doctor here, although if you need to go in for emergencies like displaced citizenNor is it where he pays taxes, in Madrid, where, with the tax savings, he can pay for private healthcare. And it's not there where his public services are funded, but in the Balearic Islands, which receive an income without assuming any costs, since, after all, the transport subsidy is paid by the State! How can we be stuck in this frenzy of royal, fiscal, and administrative residences, without a minimum cross-check of data or identifiable responsibilities in the financing of a welfare state against which many people, like the one in the aforementioned case, practice their particular tax dumping?

Initially, the gas companies were met with a resounding rejection. In October 2013, a law was passed that allowed certain sectors an 85% reduction in the taxable base of the electricity tax. Some gas manufacturers approached the Ministry of Finance, requesting that they, as an industry in which the electricity consumed accounts for more than 50% of the cost of the product they manufacture, also qualify for this discount. The ministry's response at the time was that the "limitations imposed by the restrictive budgetary framework" made it impossible. Even the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT) concluded that extending the tax reduction to this type of company would be "difficult to control."

"The party of Begoña Gómez's husband, Sabiniano Gómez's son-in-law, David Azagra's brother, José Luis Ábalos's head of government, and Santos Cerdán's leader in the PSOE is extremely concerned about the indictment of a minister who served as such more than seven years ago and who has no working ties to Feijóo's team or the current PP." This was the message the PP communicated to reporters at 12:30 p.m. this Thursday, just an hour before announcing that Cristóbal Montoro had resigned from the party. The sour tone shows that the case has fallen like a bomb in Génova, since if we add this scandal to the fact that Pedro Sánchez emerged alive from the parliamentary appearance on July 9, the result is that the momentum from the PP congress two weeks ago has evaporated in a flash. In football terms, it's like having the match tied right at the end of the first half after leading 2-0. It's true that the second half is still to come, but the mood isn't the same.

The deputy head of the Customs Surveillance Service in Catalonia is in pretrial detention for allegedly being part of a smuggling ring operating in the Port of Barcelona. Francisco Javier Martín Miñana, just days away from retirement, was the head of the Customs Surveillance Operational Unit, a position considered the second-highest ranking in Catalonia within the Tax Agency's group tasked with combating smuggling and drug trafficking. A total of eight people have been arrested, some of them dockworkers and transporters from the Port. Apart from Miñana, three others have been provisionally imprisoned. During the investigation, the Civil Guard and the Tax Agency point out, they have been caught with more than two million boxes of blond tobacco, valued at more than 8.8 million euros.

The Spanish Tax Agency must return €2.198 billion corresponding to 2.33 million 2024 income tax returns filed by Catalan taxpayers, according to data published this Wednesday by the Ministry of Finance. The money to be returned corresponds to the personal income tax (IRPF) returns of the income tax campaign, which opened on April 2 and closed this Monday, June 30.

A dog persistently sniffs a shipping container filled with sacks of cocoa. A Civil Guard officer guides it while Customs Surveillance officers examine it. The container comes from Ecuador, and the objective is to find a bag of hidden cocaine. The 70-kilogram sacks are stacked on top of each other, without pallets, making surveillance even more difficult. Everything must be done by hand. The dog doesn't bark or sit: for now, it's clean. At another terminal in the port, Customs Surveillance officers open the doors of another container. It's a quick gesture, but it happens slowly. "This one is quite likely carrying drugs," they warn. It comes from Brazil, and there are a multitude of boxes of sewing thread. They climb in, search, open, but only thread and more thread appear. They touch the boxes with some kind of marker. It's called cocatest. Also a negative woman.

A few months ago it became known that the citizens of Spain are some of the users who use the Bizum application the most to make instant transfers from all over the world. Due to the increased use of this app, the Treasury is putting its focus on banking transactions made through Bizum by adding new controlsThe latest development from the Tax Agency is the tracking of all transactions, regardless of the amount involved, which represents a radical change in financial control.

Beyond the measures that the Spanish government wants to deploy to help the sectors affected by Donald Trump's tariff policy, Pedro Sánchez's executive also seeks to influence the Commission's response Europe in the trade war. For example, it wants the EU executive to approve a European fund with part of the money raised from tariffs applied by the European Union. The idea is for this money to serve as a lifeline for the most affected companies.

Unless the 2025 income tax return campaign for 2024 income and expenses begins, the Spanish Tax Agency's machinery began operating on April 2 and will continue until June 30. For now, online tax returns are available, while telephone tax returns will not be available until May 6 (appointments can be made starting April 29) and in-person tax returns will not be available until June 2 (with appointments starting May 29).

If a person's standard of living differs from what he or she has declared, whether in terms of income or assets, the Tax Agency is likely to target him or her, or at least this is the intention of the body that, among other things, controls tax fraud and reports to the Ministry of Finance. Specifically, the Tax Agency intends to boost its control over individuals who show signs of wealth that "disagree" with their declared income and assets in 2025, as the public body explained this Monday, coinciding with the publication in Official State Gazette (BOE) of the Annual Tax and Customs Control Plan for the year 2025.