The Spanish Treasury has reminded taxpayers today of their duty to pay what they owe to the relevant authority and has warned that doing so to the Catalan Tax Agency could lead to sanctions and even constitute a criminal offence.
The Treasury has published a statement (in Spanish) making this warning clear after the president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, said that the Catalan Tax Agency, with the capacity to collect 42 billion euros a year, is "prepared" to apply the result of the 1st October referendum, "whatever the wish" the Catalans show that day.
The Spanish ministry, led by Cristóbal Montoro, stresses that, although Catalonia is able to manage its own taxes, it cannot take on those which aren't its responsibility to manage and warns taxpayers that presenting their declarations to the wrong authority means that "they will be considered as not presented and their debts as unpaid".
The Treasury explains that, within the framework of the system of funding of the autonomous communities, Catalonia, like the other communities under the common regime, has its own tax agency which can manage regional taxes.
It specifically cites the wealth tax, inheritance tax, gambling tax and special taxes on certain means of transport. The rest have to be paid to the relevant tax administration, and the Treasury reiterates that not doing so means they're considered as unpaid.
Embargoes and sanctions
Therefore, it explains that in the case of taxes whose management falls to the state, the Treasury could start audits, processes to liquidate the debt or impose sanctions or start confiscation processes to the value of the debt.
"These behaviours could constitute crimes against the Public Treasury," they say. In this sense, the Treasury reminds that legal entities not only have tax responsibilities, but also criminal responsibility, in accordance with the Penal Code.
Moreover, their administrators "can gain tax responsibility, as being responsible solidaries or subsidiaries for the payment of the defrauded tax debt" depending on their level of participation in the infraction.
Suspensions by the TC
At the end of the statement, they also explain the history of the Catalan Tax Agency, created in 2007, as "an entity which other autonomous communities also have". However, "the Catalan government has approved legislation to be able to turn it into Catalonia's 'own Treasury'", steps which the Constitutional Court has suspended for "exceeding the constitutional and statutory framework," they say.