When you make a mistake in your income tax return in favor of the Treasury, you can initiate a process to rectify the self-assessment and request a refund of undue income. In other words, explain to the Tax Agency what the error was and ask for a change to your return.
This tool, provided for in the General Tax Law, was used by financial advisors and taxpayers to be able to disagree with the Treasury criteria without fear of a penalty.
Its operation is very simple. In the event of doubts about a complete standard, a first conservative declaration is presented based on the Treasury’s criteria. That is, following the most rigid interpretation of the treasury.
Once submitted, the procedure for rectification of that declaration begins. That is where the discrepancy is raised to the Treasury and it is sought to change its general or initial criteria. In this way, if the Tax Agency (AEAT) does not agree with you, you avoid the fine and sanction that would have been imposed if you had filled out the self-assessment according to your interpretation.
This system had advantages for the Treasury and for the taxpayer. The first, because he received the money in advance according to his strictest criteria. The second, because he avoided exposing himself to a sanction.
This right is what the Treasury has eliminated through the new corrective self-assessment introduced by Law 13/2023 and regulated by Royal Decree 117/2024.
Goodbye to the right to disagree: the new corrective self-assessment
According to Law 13/2023, “a single system is established for the correction of self-assessments, regulating for this purpose the new figure of the corrective self-assessment” that will serve to “rectify, complete or modify any self-assessment submitted previously, with “Independence of the result, without the need to wait for the administrative resolution.”
In other words, this figure replaces the current dual system that had the figure of the complementary self-assessment and the rectification request. The new corrective declaration ends with that first conservative self-assessment and automatically generates a risk of sanction that did not exist before.
To understand it better, with the current system, you can only submit a single declaration. Thus, you can choose to follow the Treasury’s criteria or risk making your own interpretation and then having the Treasury fine you, although the latest rulings on the right to tax error open the door to not having to pay a penalty.
Exceptions to the norm
The single corrective self-assessment system will be mandatory in general, although there are some exceptions.
The previous scheme may continue to be used when “it is exclusively the reasoned allegation of a possible violation by the rule applied in the prior self-assessment of the precepts of another rule of higher legal, constitutional, European Union Law or of a Treaty or International agreement.”
For practical purposes, this makes it practically impossible to benefit from the above scheme without a group of tax advisors studying your case.
Reduces the administrative burden and increases the possibility of sanctions.
The two main effects of Law 13/2023 and the new declaration rectification system will be a reduction in the administrative burden, which is one of the objectives sought by the law.
With the current system, the Treasury was faced with written complaints, which is how rectification is presented, from taxpayers. The treasury had to read the taxpayer’s explanations, review the supporting documents and then decide. If a favor from the taxpayer fails, he could even have to apply late payment interest to that return.
This delayed resolution and represented a significant workload. The solution has been to eliminate that first step and transfer to the taxpayer the risk of submitting the self-assessment and being penalized. Of course, this sanction can be claimed through the traditional means, but with this movement the Treasury has already skipped a previous step and has the advantage of being the one who sanctions.
It is worth remembering that the Treasury screws up the more than 253,265 claims filed by taxpayers each year.
With the change, as there is no possibility of disagreement, many people will choose to make the declaration directly following the criteria of the AEAT to avoid the penalty.
What taxes apply
The new system is applied to the income tax return, VAT, Corporate Tax and also special taxes and the Tax on Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases.
