The Tax Agency. The Tax Agency

Transcription

1 The Tax Agency The Tax Agency was officially created by article 103 of Act 31/1990 of 27 December on the 1991 National Budget, although it only took real form on 1 January It is an organisation under public law, dependent on the Ministry of Finance through the Office of the Secretary of State for Finance. As it operates under public law, the Tax Agency uses a legal framework of its own that differs from the legal framework applied to the General State Administration, so the Tax Agency enjoys a certain autonomy in budgetary matters and personnel management, although it does always uphold the same essential underlying principles of good government action. The Tax Agency s job is to apply Spain s tax and customs systems effectively and, when so mandated by law or by agreement, to act as a proxy for other public administrations from Spain or the European Union and manage their tax resources on their behalf. The Tax Agency is not in charge of managing the sorts of taxes that the regional governments of Spain s Autonomous Communities exact (mainly property transfers and stamp duties, inheritance tax and gift tax) or the types of taxes that municipalities and other local corporations manage. Nor does it have the power to write and approve tax legislation or, on the public expenditure side, to earmark public resources for any of their many different uses. - Important functions related with the revenues Spain s Autonomous Communities and Autonomous Cities receive; it manages personal income tax and collects other revenues on Autonomous Communities behalf as ordered by legislation or agreed under cooperation agreements. - Collection of the European Union s own revenues. - Customs management and the fight against smuggling. - Collection of charges people pay to the Spanish public sector in voluntary compliance with rules and regulations. - Collection of revenues owed by law to the General State Administration and the public organisations linked to it or dependent on it, and the taking of legal proceedings to enforce collection. - Cooperation in the fight against certain offences, primarily offences against the Exchequer and smuggling violations. The Spanish tax and customs system provides comprehensive management for a wide range of activities, including: - Management, auditing and collection of taxes owed to the State. 5

2 Organisational Structure The Tax Agency provides a public service, and it is designed to do that job well, with a specialised administration that can quickly and efficiently adapt to changes in the social environment where the Agency operates. Structurally speaking, the Tax Agency can be broken down into Central Services and Territorial Services. It is governed by its Chairman (Spain s Secretary of State for Finance), a Director-General, a Higher Board of Directors, a Standing Management Committee and a Territorial Management Coordination Committee. CHAIRMAN HIGHER BOARD OF DIRECTORS STANDING MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE TERRITORIAL MANAGEMENT COORDINATION COMMITTEE SECURITY AND CONTROL COMMISSION JOINT COMMISSION ON TAX MANAGEMENT COORDINATION TECHNICAL ADVISORY AND SUPPORT OFFICE DIRECTOR GENERAL OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY COMPTROLLER OTHER SUPPORT UNITS DEPARTMENTS AND SERVICES SPECIAL BUREAUS BUREAUS ADMINISTRATIONS CUSTOMS AND EXCISE ADMINISTRATIONS 4. Central Services The Agency s Central Services are organised into functional operations areas and support areas. The Central Services departments and services are shown in the organisation chart on the following page. 5. Territorial Services The Territorial Services follow the same scheme of organisation by areas, but on a territory-by-territory basis. There are 17 special bureaus (one in each Autonomous Community) and 56 bureaus (usually covering a province apiece), containing a total of 242 administrations, 37 of which are customs administrations. 6

3 Tax Management S.G. Technical Tax Matters S.G. Tax Information and Assistance S.G. Legal Assistance and Legislative Coordination S.G. Tax Verification and Control S.G. Planning and Coordination Financial and Tax Auditing S.G. Legal Ordinances and Legal Assistance S.G. Studies, Methods and Procedures S.G. Planning and Control S.G. Territorial Auditing Collection S.G. Organisation and Planning S.G. Coordination and Management S.G. Enforced Collection S.G. Special Procedures Customs and Excise Deputy Directorate of Customs Supervision S.G. Operations S.G. Logistics S.G. Planning, Statistics and Coordination S.G. Customs Management S.G. Excise Management and Control S.G. Auditing and Investigation S.G. Chemistry and Technology S.G. International Relations Chairman Director General Organisation, Planning and Institutional Relations Deputy Directorate Standing Technical Secretariat of the Joint Commission on Tax Management Coordination S.G. Organisation and Coordination S.G. Planning and Programming S.G. Outside Communications Tax Data- Processing S.G. Data-Processing Planning and Coordination S.G. Operation S.G. Applications S.G. Customs and Excise Applications S.G. Statistical and Tax Studies Human Resources and Economic Administration Deputy Directorate of Human Resources Deputy Directorate of Economic Administration S.G. Administrative Management of Personnel S.G. Programming and Incentivation S.G. Labour Relations S.G. Budgets and Financial Management S.G. Accounting S.G. Purchasing and Contracting S.G. Real Estate and Facilities Legal Service S.G. Organisation and Legal Assistance S.G. Consultative and Litigious Affairs Technical Advisory and Support Office Internal Auditing Service Service Auditorates S.G. Tax Revenue Budgeting, Tracking and Study 7

4 General Objectives As the public agency in charge of managing the Spanish tax and customs system, the Tax Agency has the prime objective of collecting a major part of the revenues called for each year in the National Budget. The Agency has crafted a collection style built on the basis of encouraging citizens to comply with their tax obligations voluntarily, but always adhering to the following principles: 1. Utter respect for all citizens rights and guarantees recognised by law, especially Act 1/1998 of 28 February on Taxpayer Rights and Guarantees. 2. A firm commitment to help citizens fulfil their obligations as taxpayers. 3. Ease, speed and simplicity of procedure, so taxpayers have to deal with less red tape and unnecessary trips and can benefit from more new tax payment facilities and ways of relating to the Agency. 4. Speed and ease of communications with citizens, making the most out of cutting-edge technologies. 5. Security and confidentiality in all dealings between the Agency and citizens. 6. Fair application of the tax system to the entire population, so that all citizens contribute their due. 7. Professionalism, impartiality and transparency in all the Tax Agency s activities, endeavouring to earn absolute confidence from Spain s citizens. 8. Efficacy and efficiency in all the Agency s tax procedures. 9. Ongoing adaptation to the socioeconomic environment and citizens newly arising needs. 10. Participation by Autonomous Communities and Autonomous Cities and other public organisations, institutions and social entities in the provision of services, so as provide more convenient ways for citizens to discharge their tax obligations. Using these principles as its guide, the Tax Agency pursues two fundamental lines of strategy. First, it aims to provide citizens with direct, immediate facilities for discharging their tax obligations voluntarily. To do that, the Agency offers taxpayers more and better services taking advantage of state-of-theart technology. Second, the Agency takes vigorous action to check tax payments and fight tax fraud, so as to ensure that the tax and customs system is applied effectively. That way, when citizens are called upon to contribute to the public pocket, that obligation is applied fairly to all. Human Resources The Tax Agency s job involves a lot of important work, and approximately 27,000 public employees are there to help it get that job done. That s not too many, if we compare the number of employees at the Spanish Tax Agency to the number of people on the payroll of the tax administrations of other neighbouring countries. To be more exact, as of 31 December of the year 2002, 27,661 people were working for the Tax Agency. The numbers have stabilised since the same date last year, with a decline of only 7 people (87 civil servants more and 94 contract employees less). There has therefore been an increase of 0.4% in total civil servant personnel and a decrease of 3.3% in regular employed personnel. These figures do not include the 1,251 part-time employees hired to help out in income tax campaign. 8

5 The distribution of the Tax Agency s staff as of 31 December 2002 displays the following characteristics: - By civil servant qualification groups, the figures for groups C and D are very similar. Group D is still the largest, with 8,045 staff members (32% of the total staff), and the majority of them belong to the General Auxiliary Corps. Group C has 7,748 civil servants (31% of the total); most of the people in Group C are members of the General Clerical Corps and the Corps of Customs Supervision Agents. Group B holds third place, with 28%, and is mainly made up of the Exchequer Technicians Corps, in addition to the Executive Corps of Customs Supervision. Lastly, there is Group A, which accounts for 8% of the Agency s total personnel; numerical superiority there is held by the members of the Higher Corps of Tax Auditors (TABLE No 1). TABLE No 1 PERSONNEL DISTRIBUTION BY QUALIFICATION GROUPS CIVIL SERVANTS AS OF 31/12/2002 Number % GROUP A Tax Auditors 1,496 Customs Supervision Technicians 193 Higher Systems and Information Technologies Personnel 89 Public Finance Architects 50 Chemistry Professors for Customs 30 Rest of Group A 174 TOTAL FOR GROUP A 2,032 8 GROUP B Public Finance Technicians 6,085 Executive Customs Supervision Personnel 392 Systems and Data Processing Management Personnel 215 State Civil Administration Management Personnel 126 Rest of Group B 222 TOTAL FOR GROUP B 7, GROUP C General Clerical, Specialised Agents of the Exchequer 4,050 General Clerical, Specialised Tax Administration Personnel 1,670 General Clerical, State Administration Personnel 256 Auxiliary Data Processing Technicians 694 Customs Supervision Agents 956 Rest of Group C 122 TOTAL FOR GROUP C 7, GROUP D General Auxiliary, Specialised Tax Administration Personnel 7,470 General Auxiliary, State Administration Personnel 291 Rest of Group D 284 TOTAL FOR GROUP D 8, TOTAL FOR GROUP E 51 - TOTAL NUMBER OF CIVIL SERVANTS 24, TOTAL NUMBER OF NON-CIVIL SERVANT EMPLOYEES 2, OVERALL TOTAL STAFF 27, Source: Human Resources and Economic Administration 9

6 - Of the Tax Agency s 27,661 public employees, 24,390 work at territorial services. That makes 88.2% of the Agency s total staff. The other 3,271 employees or 11.8% work at the Central Services (TABLE No 2 and GRAPH I). GRAPH I PERSONNEL DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN CENTRAL AND TERRITORIAL SERVICES 2,463 2, ,927 TABLE No 2 PERSONNEL DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN CENTRAL AND TERRITORIAL SERVICES CENTRAL PERIPHERAL TOTAL Civil servants 2,989 21,927 24,916 Non-Civil servant Employees 282 2,463 2,745 TOTAL 3,271 24,390 27,611 Source: Human Resources and Economic Administration - Exactly 72.3% of the Tax Agency s staff works in one of the four operations areas (Management, Auditing, Collection and Customs), a total of 20,011 people. The Tax Management area is staffed by 6,700 people, followed by Auditing with 5,035, Collection with 4,557 and Customs with 3,719 (GRAPH II). GRAPH II PERSONNEL DISTRIBUTION BY AREAS 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4, ,000 1,000 0 Tax Management Collection Tax Data-Processing Inspection Customs General 10

7 - Personnel distribution by age intervals and sexes is shown in TABLES No 3 and 4. Agency workers are an average of 43 years old. TABLE No 3 PERSONNEL DISTRIBUTION BY AGE AGE INTERVAL TOTAL NUMBER OF PERSONS 1,314 9,427 10,219 4,596 2,060 27,661 PERCENTAGE Source: Human Resources and Economic Administration TABLE No 4 PERSONNEL DISTRIBUTION BY SEX WOMEN % MEN % TOTAL 14, , ,661 Source: Human Resources and Economic Administration Income Budget The Tax Agency has an annual budget of its own whose two main features are that its overall total is restrictive in nature and its credits are distributed by economic categories pursuant to an estimate. The Agency is financed fundamentally by current and capital transfers from the State, which make up over 97% of the Agency s definitive forecast revenues. The rest of the income budget comes basically from charges and other revenues. In fiscal 2002 a total of 1,050,922,000 euros in revenues were applied to fund the Agency s budget; the bulk of that, 1,019,362,000 euros, was provided in the form of current and capital transfers. One part of these transfers is the Tax Agency s share of the sums it collects in assessments and collection management proceedings, or comes from administrative acts decided or ruled by the Agency in the sorts of tax management matters that fall within its particular sphere of powers, which, under point five b) of article 103 of Act 31/1990 on the 1991 National Budget, is found by multiplying this collected amount by a percentage that is set each year in the National Budget. In application of article 19 of Act 23/2001 on the 2002 National Budget, the percentage for 2002 is 5%, and for the first time a limit is set on this income, which cannot be in excess of 50 million euros. 11