How to avoid receiving electronic notifications while on vacation

Taxpayers may designate up to a maximum of 30 days per year during which the Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) may not make notifications available to them in their Enabled Electronic Address (Dirección Electrónica Habilitada, DEH)

The following persons and entities, among others, are required to receive communications and notifications by electronic means:

1. Legal entities.

2. Entities without legal personality (joint ownership arrangements (comunidades de bienes), civil-law partnerships (sociedades civiles), etc.)

3. Persons engaged in a professional activity that requires mandatory membership in a professional association, for the formalities and actions they carry out with the public administrations in the exercise of that professional activity.

Self-employed workers and other individuals may voluntarily opt into this system. They will choose the electronic notification procedures to which they wish to subscribe.

Requesting courtesy days (días de cortesía)

The request must be submitted through the Tax Agency’s e-Office (Sede Electrónica). Bear in mind that, since these are calendar days, Saturdays and Sundays must also be marked.

To use this service, the person concerned must have a digital certificate issued in their name. In addition, to avoid being notified, we must submit the request at least 7 calendar days before the vacation period we wish to take.

If we have made a mistake or at some point decide to change our vacation dates, this calendar can be modified, provided we do so 7 days before the date we are going to modify. Representatives (apoderados) acting before the Tax Agency may also request courtesy days, which is even more important for them, as they handle notifications for many of their clients.

Recommendations

Mark the 30 days as early as possible. They must be chosen at least one week in advance, so this cannot be done overnight.

Start the period a few days before you leave on vacation so that you do not receive a notification the very day before you leave. That way, you will not have to disrupt your plans to prepare the documentation needed to respond to the notification.

End the period a few days before you return, since if you receive a notification on those days it will remain in your mailbox available for download for 10 days, so you can download it without any problem when you get back.

Penalties of between €150 and €600,000 for failing to attend to messages

According to the current position of the courts, following a recent decision of the Central Economic-Administrative Court (TEAC), the electronic mailbox is treated as equivalent to the traditional mailbox for all purposes.

Thus, under the now unified criterion, a taxpayer (obligado tributario) who, being required to receive communications from the AEAT by electronic means, does not access the content of the information requests notified by those means may commit the infringement defined in Article 203 of Law 58/2003, the General Tax Law (LGT), even if they have had no actual knowledge of their existence.

This infringement, which carries fines of between €150 and €600,000, covers conduct that tends to delay, hinder, or prevent the actions of the tax authorities, including failure to comply with duly notified requests. Or, put another way, failing to respond to what is requested in the notification will be considered “obstruction, excuse, or refusal in respect of the actions of the tax authorities,” and the self-employed worker could be penalized, depending on the seriousness of the breach.