Fiscal fraud clampdown

ANTI-FRAUD measures earned the Spanish government €5.5 billion in the first six months of this year.

It was the best half-year result ever, announced Cristobal Montoro, who heads the Finance ministry and Spain’s tax authority Hacienda.

The government’s efforts to bring the submerged economy to the surface are getting results, Montoro said, and this was reflected in increased VAT (IVA) income.

In the first six months of the year Hacienda’s revenue from VAT grew by 6.8 per cent although earnings from other taxes rose 5.3 per cent.

“More income from the consumer tax should signal increased spending but revenue is ahead of the way the economy is evolving,” Montoro pointed out.

Hacienda is also receiving more corporation tax, the minister added. In 2011 Spain’s large companies paid 3.8 per cent, but a year later this rose to 5.3 per cent and owing to changes in the law is now expected to have reached 9 per cent in 2013.

For the first time 134,000 Spaniards and residents had to declare assets and holdings outside Spain, Montoro explained, an innovation that earned another €88 billion for the government.