On 1 February 2021 a resolution, dated 19 January 2021, of the Spanish Tax Administration Agency was published in the Spanish Official Gazette approving the general guidelines of the Annual Tax and Customs Audit Plan 2021 (the "Spanish Tax Audit Plan 2021").
In relation to international taxation, we highlight below the main actions - some new and others reiterative - that the Spanish Tax Audit Plan 2021 foresees for this year.
As a novelty, the Spanish Tax Agency is expected to focus its attention on the following actions:
- Use of new technologies for signing tax assessment documents, with the aim of avoiding physical travel.
- Review, as a priority, of the tax situation of taxpayers operating in the sectors of activity less affected by COVID-19.
- Reinforcement of the control of the economic activity carried out via electronic commerce.
- Strengthening of administrative cooperation activities between Member States through joint tax audits.
As in previous years, the Spanish Tax Agency is expected to continue carrying out the following actions:
- Preferential attention to intragroup financial transactions.
- Promotion of advanced pricing agreements (APAs).
- Priority tax audits on transfer pricing and cross-border transactions.
- Special attention to the correct attribution of profits to permanent establishments.
- Optimization of the use of the international information received by virtue of tax information exchanges.
- Multilateral controls to examine the correctness of intra-group payments for the transfer of intangibles, within the EU.
- Keeping up with the Mutual Agreement Procedures as one of the main international tools for the resolution of disputes between two tax Administrations.
- Review of taxpayers who have pending carry-forward tax losses and other tax credits pending application in the Corporate Income Tax.
- Simultaneous controls and coordinated tax audits at international level.
- Tax audits focused on the correct application of anti-tax haven rules and on the identification of structures that benefit from the low taxation of tax havens.
- Control over CIT and VAT groups.
- Actions related to operations carried out with cryptocurrencies.
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