I have to present the forms if I have no activity, I have to be refunded because I have bought more than I have sold or I have cancelled my self-employed status.
Sometimes, for a few months we stop working or we don’t sell anything. What happens?

There are 3 different cases:

First one: I have no activity because I have cancelled my registration with the tax authorities.

In this case, you will only have to present the quarter in which you have cancelled your registration, the annual summaries, and the income tax for the following year. For example, I deregister with the Inland Revenue (i.e. I file a form 037 or 036 for deregistration) on 15 May 2022. This implies that I will file all the quarterly forms in July, then in October I will not file anything, and in January 2023 I will file the annual summaries, as well as the quarterly VAT if the Inland Revenue owes me VAT. Then in February I will file the annual summary of the 347 form, and in the income period, I will declare my activity data that I had from January 1, 2022 to May 15, 2022.

In addition to these forms, you will have to keep the official accounting books, as well as all the invoices of purchases and sales for 4 years, which is the period that the Inland Revenue has to carry out any type of inspection.

Second one:  I have no activity but I am still registered with the tax authorities, being self-employed.

Sometimes it happens that during one or several quarters, we have no income or expenses due to some temporary circumstance. This does not eliminate any obligation. We have to present all the forms without exception. What is more, in periods like this, it is highly recommended to continue accounting for expenses in order to benefit from the advantage of being self-employed, because the expenses of this period, will subtract us both for VAT and Personal Income Tax in the following periods.

Third one: I have no income but I have expenses

As soon as we are registered as self-employed, it often takes several months before we have our first income. This means that we only have expenses and the forms are negative. You are obliged to file them anyway, you have no choice. Declaring them correctly calculates them and they are presented at 0 or with a negative sign, as it corresponds to each model.

Thank you very much for reading this article. Tax&Law Spain can help you to overcome other complex matters regarding the overdue payment of invoices and tax reporting in Spain. If you have questions considering the claim for monitoring and you are looking for a professional advice and guidance, you can contact me via WhattsApp (+49 1520 8381499) or e-mail (erica@taxandlawspain.com).