The High Court of Justice of Catalonia has dealt a severe blow to the tax engineering used in the purchase and sale of tourist assets in southern Gran Canaria. The ruling, to which Maspalomas24H has had access, issued by the First Section of the Administrative Court based in Barcelona, the headquarters of the Catalan company Princess, upholds the tax assessment and penalty proceedings initiated by the Spanish Tax Agency against a major taxpayer who attempted to conceal the true market value of his shares in the company Mogán Resort, which shares the presidency with Princess. The court decision validates the State Tax Inspectorate's assessment, which increased the taxable base of the transfer from the €372.256,80 originally declared by the taxpayer to a true transfer value of €671.633,45, based on an audit of the company's net worth.
The ruling by Justice Jorge Rafael Muñoz Cortés dismisses ordinary appeal 716/2024 and effectively shifts the burden of proof to the investor. The court determines that the mere presentation of the public deed of sale and the notarization of the means of payment do not constitute sufficient evidence to justify a transfer price significantly lower than the book value. Since the taxpayer failed to provide independent valuation reports or market justifications to support the depreciation of Mogán Resort SL shares, the court applies the legal minimum established by the Personal Income Tax Law for unlisted companies, uncovering a latent capital gain that was intended to evade the corresponding taxes.
The case takes on the characteristics of a complex alleged corporate fraud when it intersects with an investigation into falsified residences aimed at exploiting tax breaks in the Community of Madrid. The Tax Agency demonstrated, through extensive circumstantial evidence, that the investor simulated his tax residence in the capital since 2013 to evade Wealth Tax and reduce his Personal Income Tax burden for the years 2015 to 2018. On-site visits by tax agents to the declared apartments in Madrid confirmed that the properties were unoccupied, had no hot water, and the neighbors on the landing had never seen the owner, who kept a Mercedes permanently parked and covered in dust in a garage in the area.
The reality of the appellant's economic and personal ties to Catalonia was consistently located on a nine-hectare residential property in Cambrils, Tarragona, where the taxpayer continuously employed several domestic workers. Utility bills, daily credit card payments at Catalan toll booths, and a record of 96 medical visits and hospital admissions in healthcare centers in Barcelona and Reus disproved the alibi of moving to Madrid at the age of 80. The Regional Economic-Administrative Court of Catalonia (TEARC) confirmed that the centralization of the taxpayer's economic interests remained linked to the Catalan business sector, declaring null and void the documents prepared to simulate the change of residence.
The court's ratification of Mogán Resort SL's financial statements has raised concerns among consulting firms and investment funds operating in the exclusive areas of Mogán and Maspalomas. The use of approved financial statements from the last completed fiscal year as the minimum benchmark for calculating the value of hotel transfers limits the scope for aggressive tax optimization between independent parties. The tax authorities are thus consolidating a rigorous oversight tool for the classified and tourism sectors in southern Gran Canaria, warning that notarized deeds no longer serve as a shield against methods of joint valuation of circumstantial evidence.
