One in ten inheritances are rejected by debts or taxes

One in ten inheritances are rejected by debts or taxes

As a consequence of the crisis the number of resignations in Spain has increased, from 16,000 in 2010 to almost 47,000 last year

  There are different reasons to renounce an inheritance. The first that comes to mind is the high taxes to pay if accepted, but from the General Council of Economists explain that the various bonuses that communities have make it difficult to sustain this idea. "Why is someone going to give up 30%, in the worst case , of a good that he did not have?", He said during the presentation of the Luis del Amo report, especially taking into account the mechanisms that exist to finance the tax and the period of time given to be able to get the money to pay the taxes.

  In his report with the Register of Tax Advisors Economists (REAF) 'Panorama of Autonomic and Regional Taxation 2019' establish a series of examples for each community depending on the degree of consanguinity of the heir. In the case of a person who inherits from his father 800,000 euros, of which 200,000 correspond to a house , in some regions he would not pay anything for Inheritance Tax, as in Andalusia or Cantabria, little in others like the Canary Islands (only 134 euros) , whereas in those that the heir would have to contribute the most according to the proposed example would be in Castilla y León (81,000 euros) and Asturias (103,000 euros).

There are many other cases depending on the amount inherited and the kinship, but even in the worst case (if the heir is not a relative of the deceased and had a high estate before receiving it), with the same assumption of the previous case, the place where less would have to pay is if it is resident in Catalonia (306,000 euros) and the maximum would be in Murcia and Andalusia (499,000 euros both).

That is to say, that even being this case, the heir would get money that he did not have before. It is the reason why the economist Del Amo says he does not understand the "popular legend" that inheritance is renounced for what has to be paid to the Treasury, since that person gets at least 30% money with which I did not count before, after taxes.

So, in his opinion this fact serves more related to the indebtedness of the heir himself, if he receives a sum of money will go directly to his creditors and prefer to resign, or that the inheritance itself entails.

According to the data of the report, last year Spaniards received almost 430,000 inheritances and almost 47,000 were rejected , a percentage close to 11%. The figures confirm that the "hangover" of the crisis has motivated the increase in resignations because many citizens are more indebted than before, explains Del Amo, because in 2010 -first year of the study- only 5% of inheritances were renounced, some 16,000 of the total of 327,000 existing, but the figure has been gradually rising to 10.89% in 2018.

Tax reduction by election year
The president of the Council, Valentin Pich, considers that this election year will mean that the Tax on Inheritance and Donations will fall in terms of tax collection since "the tax competition to the downside begins this year to extend to more distant brothers and relatives". Pich complains about the fiscal "disorganization" in the autonomies: "The autonomic taxation is getting complicated by seconds, there is a bit of irrationality".

Hacienda investigates where the electricity bill is paid or where money is usually taken to check the fiscal residence of
JESUS SANMARTÍN, CGE PRESIDENT

The novelty of 2019 is that the communities - practically all of them already bonificaban to the children, spouses and parents who received inheritances or gifts - are offering these tax benefits to relatives of more distant degree , such as cousins, nephews or uncles of the deceased.

On the mobility of Spaniards to pay less, that is, change their fiscal residence , Jesus Sanmartín, president of the General Council of Economists, explains that it is increasingly difficult to deceive the Treasury because the taxpayer is persecuted in his most basic economic movements such as where has the doctor, where the electricity bills are domiciled, where is he subscribed to the newspaper or, one of the most common, where do you usually get the cash from the ATM, explains Sanmartín.

And it is that according to data from Fedea, more than 2,500 Spaniards moved their fiscal residence to the Community of Madrid from 2005 to 2012 from other communities attracted by the policy of tax rebates, especially in Inheritance and Donations Tax, as well as Heritage . The tax deception comes when these taxpayers did not even physically move to Madrid, but continued to make life in their cities.