Speaking in Seville, the Minister for the Treasury and Public Administration Services, Cristóbal Montoro, announced that the Spanish State Tax Office (Spanish acronym: AEAT) collected revenue of 12.32 billion euros in 2014 through its tax control activity. This is an increase of 12.5% on the results obtained in 2013 (10.95 billion euros) and, in turn, represents an all-time record.
"It is the highest figure ever achieved from our tax and customs fraud prevention and control activity; we should all congratulate ourselves on this result", said the Spanish minister in Seville at the opening of the annual meeting of Spanish Tax Office Delegates from throughout Spain. The overall total revenue from 2012, 2013 and 2014 (some 34.79 billion euros) is close to the figure obtained in the four previous years.
The minister stressed that these results are even more noteworthy when considering that they have been achieved during times of budgetary restrictions and on past non-statute-barred years in which tax bases were in decline due to the economic crisis.
The result of the reforms
Cristóbal Montoro stressed that these counter-fraud results stem from the structural economic reforms approved by the Government of Spain in the last three years. These include approval of the Anti-fraud Act (Law 7/2012), the new obligation to declare overseas assets and the new tax information exchange agreements, which have led to "definitive" progress in the fight against tax fraud - a priority objective for the Government of Spain since it came to power.
"We have changed the law to increase transparency and control over large fortunes, to provide more information about the assets that some taxpayers own overseas, so that any money that cannot be seen by the Spanish Treasury starts to be taxed in Spain and to toughen penalties against larger fraudsters", he added.
Cristóbal Montoro stressed that these "historic results" serve to increase revenue and better finance public services on the one hand and, on the other, send a warning to fraudsters that "we continue to wage this battle tirelessly and aim to put an end to any level of fraud we come across".
Spanish Tax Office efficiency
The Spanish minister also highlighted the "effectiveness" of the Spanish Tax Office in obtaining these results, which are accompanied by efficiency in the use of available resources "and place the Spanish Tax Office among the best in our peer countries". Currently, the Spanish Tax Office collects one Euro in the fight against fraud for every 11 Euro cents invested in such activity. This represents half the amount invested in 2005.
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