Since January 1st, the new reference value of the Cadastre is the taxable base for taxes as important as the Transfer Tax (ITP), Stamp Duty (AJD) or Inheritance and Gift Tax (ISyD). In other words, it is the key to determine how much tax has to be paid for the purchase, inheritance or donation of a used property.
The Government included this change in Law 11/2021 on measures to prevent and combat fraud, passed last summer, and in its first months of operation it is having a negative impact: an increase in the settlements to be assumed by buyers of used homes.
According to a study carried out by the National Federation of Real Estate Associations (FAI), based on a survey of more than 400 real estate agencies in Spain, the new reference value increases by a national average of 17.1% the taxation of second-hand purchases and sales above their real market value.
The document states that “76.11% of the real estate agencies surveyed have intervened in sales whose reference market value of the cadastre has been higher than the actual transfer value in deeds and that the increase has occurred in 19% of these”. In other words, this overcharge is occurring in one out of every five sales and purchases.
With these figures on the table, the National Federation of Real Estate Associations charges against the Treasury and states that “this new system is an unfair and new tax burden and a further financial outlay for the buyer, which will discourage or may even stop part of the sales and purchases, especially among people who want to buy their first home and in a complex current economic context marked by inflation at historic highs”.
For the organism, this ‘catastrazo’ “does not adjust to real market parameters, since it does not consider the state of reform or the interior distribution of the houses, among other factors”. And insists that “the fact that the Treasury has transferred to the taxpayer the burden of proof to demonstrate the value of the property acquired, when it does not agree, could be interpreted as casting doubt on the veracity of the notary public faith in market sales and purchases, which are the majority, and, consequently, could be considered as a confiscatory and unconstitutional practice, as some experts have already warned”.
It should be remembered that, until the entry into force of the regulation, it was the tax authorities who were responsible for challenging if they thought that the deed value did not correspond to the real value of a property, while now it will be the taxpayers who will have to prove the contrary, so the burden of proof falls on them.
For this reason, the FAI considers it necessary that “the new system for calculating the cadastral value should be revised to bring it more in line with market reality and that it should not prevail over the transfer value in deeds of sale”. And it asks that the Transfer Tax (ITP) “should be exempted in the case of a first non-luxury habitual residence to encourage emancipation and access to home ownership”.
SOURCE: IDEALISTA