In a judgment dated June 12, 2023, magistrate María Esperanza Córdoba Castroverde states that no body of the Spanish Administration is competent to assess the circumstances of issuing a tax residence certificate issued by another State.
Therefore. The Spanish Tax Agency cannot ignore the content of said document issued by a country with which Spain has an agreement to avoid double taxation (CDI).
In short, it rules: "the validity of a residence certificate issued by the tax authorities of another State must be presumed, and its content cannot be rejected, precisely because a double taxation agreement has been signed."
The Treasury claimed from a citizen with tax residence in the United States the amount of 3,6 million euros for income tax from 2008 to 2010. Spain and the United States have signed an agreement since 1990. The Treasury alleged that the citizen in question had several homes in Spain, vehicles high-end and open accounts in Spanish entities. However, the income that said citizen received came from the United States.
For all these reasons, the Treasury rejected the tax residence certificate, unilaterally decided that there was a residence conflict, ignoring the rules set forth in the agreement itself to resolve such cases and directly applied Article 9.1 b) of the LIRPF: said citizen He was considered a Spanish tax resident because the direct or indirect base of his income was in Spain.
The ruling of this sentence annuls the criteria of the Treasury, stresses that the CDI (Double Taxation Agreement) is above Spanish legislation, and therefore if there really is a conflict of tax residence, it must be resolved by the court of instance according to the CDI criteria.