The Treasury Department will have updated information on the actual ownership of companies

On 5 February, the Tax Office announced that it had signed an agreement with the General Council of Notaries by virtue of which the Agency will be able to access the information contained in the Notaries’ Real Estate Ownership Database.

The obligation to formalize the deed of real ownership came into force with Law 10/2010, of April 28, on the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism. As you know, said act must be formalized before a notary public, and it must identify the individuals who are the real owners of the goods or rights of the companies, in order to avoid operations on behalf of third parties or the use of front men.

With the entry into force of the aforementioned law, notaries are legally obliged not to admit the formalisation of deeds or policies if the appearing party does not duly identify the real owners of the legal entity they represent, so that the attorneys-in-fact representing the companies have to identify the persons behind the companies with these deeds.

With the signing of the agreement with the General Council of Notaries, from now on the Tax Agency will have direct access to this database of Real Ownership of Notaries, and therefore, with first-hand information on the real ownership of legal entities. This information will be available to the Tax Office within 2 months, and will be updated on a monthly basis.

In turn, the agreement also provides that both parties will agree on the way in which the Inland Revenue can obtain, to the extent of the information in the database, the sequence of entities through which an individual is the legal owner of shares or holdings, as well as the actual percentage of ownership (based on the successive percentages of indirect holdings).

At the same time, the agreement provides for the supply to the Tax Office of acts and operations contained in the Single Computerised Notarial Index, which will be supplied by computer or telematic means, with a fortnightly update of the information.

Through the Single Index, the Treasury will have a periodic supply of the identification data of proxies (the persons who grant a power of attorney to a third party to act on their behalf), attorneys-in-fact and directors of companies, as well as the dates of appointment and revocation of such powers of attorney.

Similarly, access to the index will allow the Agency to obtain information of interest for tax control on financing operations, real estate, with financial assets and with other securities, and also on operations in which the participants before the notary have refused to identify the means of payment used, or have not fully accredited them, or the cases in which they have failed to provide the notary with the Tax Identification Number, or document ‘S-1’ of cash movements when applicable.

There is no doubt that this year, when presenting the Corporate Tax (form 200), special interest must be placed on verifying the information relating to the shares of persons or entities in the declarant; since this information must coincide with the information contained in the deeds of real ownership.