Hi, I wonder if ayone has had the experience with the Spanish tax authorities that my husband and I have endured? I'm going to try and keep this post short, though not sweet.
We lived in Spain from 200 tp 2010, bought a house in 2001 and received residencias. We lived on my husband's work pension and paid tax on this in the UK.
In November 2021, we got an anxious 'phone call from my neighbour saying there was a man from the tax office and should she sign for it? We said "yes". We did not want to cause her any more stress. The letter was forwarded to us via her boyfriend in the UK and we received it 2 weeks later.
We could not understand what the document referred to, so we presented it to our abogado when we returned to Spain a week or so later. He said it was for income taxed owed for 2016/17 and we should present any evidence we had that we paid tax in the UK during 2016/17, which we duly did. This included statements from HMRC and Land Registry, along with Spainish bank statements (which showed utility payments- and the fact that we were not using water, etc.) and documents showing that we had become non-resident long before 2016. However, for the UK information, we had to return to the UK and I immediately sent it to our abogado by registered post. I traced the packet and ran off a receipt from the Correos. 2 months later, we were told that our abogado had not received them, so his office copied them and passed them on to the Spanish tax office. Our abogado then said we needed a "Letter of Confirmation of Residence" from HMRC, which I managed to acquire after 3 months. At last, I thought, after I'd scanned the Letter, which covered my husband from 2010, to our abogado, it's all over! Only to receive an email from his office, telling me it was too late(?!) Surely, we said, on our next visit, no-one can be expected to pay income tax in 2 countries? This received a shrug, even when I asked him to pass the Letter on regardless.
He then said we now need a Certificate of Residence from HMRC. But, I said, that only applies to businesses or income earners abroad, which neither of us was.
Has this happened to anyone out there? Did you resolve it? If so, would you please tell me how?
Thank you.