Blog (English)

Annulment of a penalty imposed to a power plant that produced electricity without being registered for excise duties purposes

11/9/2015

The 18th June 2015, the Central Economic and Administrative Court adopted a Decision revoking a fine imposed to a solar thermal plant that, during the periods subject to review, had been producing power without being registered for excise duties purposes.

Between 2012 and 2014, both included, the tax auditors have been assessing many tax infringement procedures, as they considered that such a behaviour qualified as a severe tax infringement, imposing penalties amounting to 100% of the taxes upon the total energy produced (art. 19.3 of the Excise Duties Act).

Although the Decision confirms the registration as a substantial element in order to benefit from the excise duties suspensive regime, it states that, under the new regime in force as of 1st January 2015, such lack of registration is no more considered a tax infringement. Such a conclusion has been reached based on the Decision issued by the Customs Central Department the 2nd March 2015 where the Customs Central Department said that since the Excise Duties Act is an ordinary Act, the principle of the most favourable rule is applicable. As per such, since this behavious does not qualify under the new regime as a tax infringement, no fine should be imposed.

The TEAC reproduces the guidelines outlined by the Legal Services of the Customs Central Department according to which, in principle, there should be no more infringement procedures open against power plants that, under the previous regime, produced energy without being registered for excise duties purposes.

In the event of files pending for resolution by the Tax Authorities or under review/ appeal (i.e. recurso de reposición), the Tax Authorities will issue new assessments cancelling the previous ones.

Finally, if the assessments have been already appealed before the economic and administrative courts, they should be annulled based on the previous arguments.

We recommend those taxpayers affected by such a Resolution to review their files and to act accordingly. Should you need more information in this respect, please do not hesitate to contact us by e-mail (info@blnpalao.com).

Modifications to the VAT warehousing regime

2/9/2014

The draft of Bill XXX modifying the Spanish VAT Act 37/1992, dated 28th December, Act 20/1991 dated 7th June, modifiying the Economic and Tax Regime of the Canary Islands and Act 38/1992 of December 28th, regulating the Excises duties an Act 16/2013 approving specific Tax Environmental and other financial measures, introduces a very important modification as regards to the Spanish VAT warehousing regime.

Should the draft of Bill be approved, this modification will be applicable as of 1st January 2016, being necessary to review the current set-ups in order to adapt them to the new regulation. As a general rule, the main modification will affect the importations of goods put under a VAT warehousing regime by the time of their arrival to the Spanish territory.

In this respect, the draft of Bill foresees two technical amendments: i) the release of goods from the VAT warehousing regime to be exported or shipped to another EU Member State will not trigger the taxable evente transaction tantamount to an import, and ii) the supply of services in relation to goods stored within a VAT warehouse will only be exempt provided such goods have been imported within the Spanish territory and such importation has qualified as an exempt import in accordance to article 65 of the Spanish VAT Act.

It should be noted that Article 65 of the Spanish VAT Act will suffer also a modificaction to the extent that the new wording reduces the list of goods that will qualify for the the application of such an exemption. As per such, our understanding is that the current application of the VAT warehousing regime will be restricted to some specific listed goods and thus we recommend to analyse the impact of the future amendments.

If you wish to know a bit more about this important modification, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@blnpalao.com

Modifications in the Spanish Electricity Tax

2/7/2014

One of the modifications to be introduced by the Tax Reform proposed by the Spanish Government last 23rd June is the approval of a “new” Electricity Tax.

Although we need to wait for the final version of the text, the draft of Bill foresees the approval of a “new” Electricity Tax that will be levied upon the consumption of electricity instead of the production, as it is the case with the remaining harmonized excise duties. Hence the Electricity Tax will no more qualify as a production excise duty, meaning that it will follow a specific regime different from the harmonized excise duties (alcohol, tobacco and hydrocarbons).

Two main amendments should be taken into account. Firstly, under the new wording proposed, only suppliers of electricity to consumers will qualify as taxpayers, meaning that in fact, all the intermediaries acting within the supply chain will not be subject to the former obligations in force until now, since they will not qualify as taxpayers. Secondly, a new tax rate is proposed: 5,11269632%.

In addition to that, there is a new reduction to the taxable base applicable to those activities where the amount of electricity consumed represents more that 50% of the product cost (i.e. the total amount corresponding to the inputs and indirect costs). This reduction will be of 85% of the taxable base and is similar to the one foreseen by the German Electricity Tax regulation.

Our understanding is that the qualification of this “new” tax as a consumption tax rather than a production one, will deepen the differences between the Tax upon the Added Value of the Energy Production and the Electricity tax itself. According to many experts, under the current wording in force, both taxes are really similar and thus, could be considered incompatible. However, it is likely that such incompatibility would be analysed in the near future by the European Court of Justice.

New import VAT scheme applicable to specific operators

26/6/2014

The draft of Bill amending, among others, VAT Act 37/1992, dated December 28, establishes a new scheme to report the import VAT that will only be applicable to certain operators that will be presumably listed in the VAT Regulation.

This is a new measure that has been constantly requested by the businesses and operators engaged in international trade, as it allows the assessment of the import VAT in their ordinary VAT returns, by means of self- assessing the import VAT as input and output VAT, meaning a nil financial impact.

In order to implement this new import VAT scheme, the draft foresees two specific measures: firstly, it creates a new audit procedure to check the accuracy of the import VAT deduction and, secondly, it also establishes a new tax infringement in the event the taxpayer does not report or unduly reports the amounts of self- assessed import VAT. Should this be the case, a monetary penalty amounting to 10% of the unduly reported import VAT quotas will be due.

Although it is a Draft and needs to be discussed in the Parliament, it is likely that this technical arrangement will come into force as of 1st January 2015.

Annulment of a penalty imposed to a power plant that produced electricity without being registered for excise duties purposes

Modifications to the VAT warehousing regime

Modifications in the Spanish Electricity Tax

New import VAT scheme applicable to specific operators

Author

Archives

Categories