BASQUE COUNTRY: When is the indirect estimation applied?

When the Tax Inspection investigates a company and cannot obtain sufficient data to determine the taxable base of a tax, it can determine it through the so-called indirect estimation.

Application assumptions

This option exists in the following cases:

• Failure to submit declarations or submission of incomplete or inaccurate declarations.
• Resistance, obstruction, excuse, or refusal to the inspection action.
• Substantial non-compliance with accounting or registration obligations.
• Disappearance or destruction, even due to force majeure, of the accounting books and records or of the supporting documents of the operations recorded in them.

How does the Tax Agency calculate the taxable base?

In these cases, the Tax Agency performs alternative calculations based, for example, on statistical data from the corresponding sector of activity, or extrapolating the commercial margin of that sector over the magnitudes it does have (purchases or sales).

Why is it advisable to avoid its application?

Because some of the assumptions that determine the application of the indirect estimation are also parallel to those that imply an increase in the applicable penalties on the amounts left uncollected.