Publications

On June 20, 2014, the Cabinet of Ministers approved four preliminary bills which proposed a root-and-branch reform of several taxes.

Now, on August 6, 2014, the following bills have been published in the Official Parliamentary Gazette:

(i) the Bill amending Personal Income Tax Law 35/2006, of November 28, 2006, the revised Nonresident Income Tax Law, approved by Legislative Royal Decree 5/2004, of March 5, 2004, and other tax provisions (bill amending personal income tax and nonresident income tax);

(ii) the Bill for the Corporate Income Tax Law; and

(iii) the Bill amending Value Added Tax Law 37/1992, of December 28, 1992; Law 20/1991, of June 7, 1991, amending the tax aspects of the Canary Islands Economic and Tax Regime; Excise and Special Taxes Law 38/1992, of December 28, 1992; and Law 16/2013, of October 29, 2013, establishing certain measures concerning environmental taxation and adopting other tax and financial measures (bill amending VAT, the Canary Islands general indirect tax, and excise and special taxes).

However, the Bill partially amending General Taxation Law 58/2003 was not published, despite the fact that the related preliminary bill was published on June 20.

As noted, these are bills, so they are subject to the relevant passage through parliament. However, as in the case of the preliminary bills, there are already several proposed amendments that are affected by what is known as the “announcement effect”, meaning that, if the reforms in question are finally approved, they will take effect in relation to taxable events that predate their entry into force.

In this Commentary, we summarize only the main differences between the preliminary bills (summarized in our Tax Commentary – Preliminary bills for the reform of several taxes) and the bills now published.