The digitalisation of processes and automation of data, thus, has managed to turn the tax compliance by design into the main goal for both Tax Administrations and taxpayers, which has been materialised in practice and, therefore, in the need to strengthen a legal-fiscal regulatory framework that, at the same time, is convenient and takes into consideration the OECD report “Technology tools to tackle tax evasion and tax fraud” to prohibit the usage of tax evasion tools and software. In fact, the Spanish Tax Administration has been particularly innovative in the usage of these technologies to ease the tax compliance and improve the efficiency not only for the taxpayers but also for the tax administration.

For its part, the AEAT has implemented advanced systems that exemplify the principle of tax compliance by design. Among the first uses we must remember the successful experience of the so called “draft of the Personal Income Tax” (henceforth, IRPF), which among three of its four parts currently turns into a tax declaration with a simple click. Which makes us harbour some hope in that, within the near future, those tax drafts could spread into other types of taxes and be produced directly by the information processing machines of the Tax Administration. For this to happen it is essential that, on top of a radical simplification of the system, an extensive exercise of transparency is put in place, as instructed by the OECD.

Within the framework of indirect taxation, we highlight the management system of the Value Added Tax based on the Immediate Supply of Information (SII) of the tax, which require that companies transmit their billing records to the AEAT almost in real-time. This system does not only improve the accuracy and transparency in the VAT collection, but also allows AEAT to produce in depth data analysis to detect possible tax evasions more effectively. Thus, this integration of technology in the tax processes is aligned with a vision of an integrated and automatized tax compliance, in which business systems are designed from the very beginning to comply with the tax legislations.

Projecte FISCALTICS
PID2022-140110OA-I00