Magistrates, lawyers and tax consultants met at UIC Barcelona to discuss the current situation surrounding tax litigation, as part of an event organised by the Spanish Association of Tax Consultants (AEDAF).

Participants included Dimitry Berberoff, magistrate in the Chamber for Contentious Administrative Proceedings of the Supreme Court; Jesús María Calderón, president of the Second Section of the Chamber for Contentious Administrative Proceedings of the National High Court;  María Abelleira, president of the First Section of the Chamber for Contentious Administrative Proceedings of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia; and Xavier Suñé, president of the Regional Economic Administrative Court of Catalonia.

Also present was Dr Jordi de Juan, a lecturer in Financial and Tax Law at UIC Barcelona and State lawyer currently on leave, who argued that “to prevent tax controversies, we must take an accurate x-ray of the questions under discussion in our courts and tribunals”. De Juan, also a member of EY's Tax Controversy team, also explained that, “that’s why regular sessions, like the one held today at UIC Barcelona and organised by the AEDAF, could be highly useful in gauging the pulse of the current state of tax controversy”.

For his part, the delegate of the AEDAF in Catalonia, Jordi Baqués, remarked that, “the growing number of cases is collapsing certain courts, and urgent changes are needed in the way we resolve these tax disputes”. According to the AEDAF representative, these conflicts account for more than 300,000 cases between the different instances. 

Baqués explained that, “statistically speaking, in over half these cases, the ruling goes in favour of the taxpayer. That means that the Tax Office carries out regularisations which should never have come up, a ‘trigger-happy’ approach thanks to which citizens are forced to endure unjust situations all too often. Public authorities should reflect on why this is happening.”