WTS Tax Update for the Digital Economy in Spain

Spain's Digital Service Tax

Following our previous updates on the Spanish Digital Services Tax (click here, here and here), the Spanish Digital Service Tax (“DST”) Act was finally published in the Spanish Official State Gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado) on 16 October 2020 and will come into force on 16 January 2021.

The Spanish DST rate is 3% and the first taxable period will be the first quarter of 2021.

Exceptionally, according to a recent communication from the Spanish Tax Authorities, the submission and payment of the DST due on the first quarter of 2021, is postponed to the second quarter of 2021 (from the 1st to the 31st of July). Hence, the first DST returns will not be submitted until July 1st, 2021.

The Spanish DST applies to certain digital services in which participating users are located in Spain and their participating activity constitutes a contribution to the value creation process for the company providing these services, and through which the company monetises those users’ contributions. Therefore, the digital services concerned are those that could not exist in their form without their users’ involvement. In particular:

a) Online advertising services, which refer to advertisements included on a digital interface that are addressed to the users of such a digital interface;
b) Online intermediation services, which refer to the provision of a multifaceted digital interface that allows users to get in contact and interact with each other, or even facilitate the delivery of goods or the provision of services directly between them, and
c) Data transmission services, which refer to sales or transfers of data about users, which have been generated as a result of activities carried out in digital interfaces.

The Spanish DST applies to companies that, on the first day of the taxable period (i.e. the first day of the quarter) exceed both of the following thresholds:

→ Worldwide revenues over €750 million in the previous calendar year; and
→ €3 million Spanish-sourced revenues from “digital services” in the previous calendar year. This threshold must be calculated by adding up all  three types of “digital services”: online advertising, online intermediation and data transmission services.

Read the full article here.