Spain: More Than 145,000 Taxpayers Regularized Pensions From Abroad

A total of 145,248 Spanish taxpayers signed up to the extraordinary open scheme between January and June this year to regularize their pensions from overseas without being subject to any penalty, surcharge or interest payment.

In these six months, both returning Spanish pensioners and foreigners in Spain have regularized a total of 309 million euros in Personal Income Tax quotas for the periods 2010-2013, which is a similar figure, for example, to the cost of the recent reduction in withholdings to 15% for the self-employed in 2015, according to the Spanish government.

Under the scheme, taxpayers filed more than 392,000 self-assessment returns which, taking into account the total amount paid in under the regularisation, means that the average sum paid in per financial year stands at 891 euros.

The extraordinary regularization period went hand-in-hand with a special scheme to waive penalties, surcharges and interest imposed by the Spanish Tax Agency for other regularization schemes prior to the open scheme between January and June. Applications for this tax relief recorded a sum total of 32,414 and the agency has agreed to return more than 13 million euros to date.

During the course of the regularzsation and debt relief process, the Spanish Tax Agency offered face-to-face assistance to more than 74,000 taxpayers and, on a prior basis, sent out more than 651,000 informative letters on the details of the scheme to potential beneficiaries.