New Tax procedures: For info

La banca enviar� a Hacienda informaci�n sobre los titulares de cuentas en 2017 (Snip below)

"For those residents who have been chased by your bank for personal details in order to verify your account ownership phase two of the process comes into full effect from next year.

From early next year the banks are obliged to provide Hacienda with all the details of individual account owners. The banks are obliged to provide the information during the first five months of 2017.
Not providing the information to your bank can result in the account being blocked 90 days after the request.
The same piece of legislation, made in 2015, also allows the tax office to automatically interchange with the tax authorities in other countries such data in order to control financial movements in other countries. Further steps in the war on fraud, giving them the ability to identify income earned abroad. "

This has also prompted some UK banks to write to Clients where Spain is shown as their Address on the Account. 2017 sees the full introduction of information sharing between Hacienda / HMRC, and stealthily HMRC also gets to share cross Agency information within the UK systems. Under the banner of International ' Money laundering' prevention (oh, yeah......... of course) .

"Not providing the information to your bank can result in the account being blocked 90 days after the request."

Do you know what information it is that they will need??

Lurchio wrote:This has also prompted some UK banks to write to Clients where Spain is shown as their Address on the Account.

Yes, I received a letter from Natwest a month or two ago. It asked me to confirm my spanish address and (oddly) asked me to provide a copy of my passport "issued by the country of residence".

Firstly, I am NOT a tax expert, just keep abreast of new stuff!

The information (from what I can see) needs to show a clear picture of where you pay tax, i.e. if you are a UK or Spanish Fiscal resident. The Banks in Spain should send you 'Information Fiscal' every January / February if you have a Spanish Bank Account. Obviously, if you are Resident in Spain, but have a UK Bank Account, depending on your Fiscal Status, things like ISA's which attract tax relief in the UK need to be addressed by the bank in so much as you need to be a UK fiscal (Tax) resident to qualify.

The picture is changing all the time, i.e. exchange of information between Countries, Hacienda access to Bank Accounts, Spanish electricity / utility accounts and Spanish local taxes etc. All to do with Money Laundering and Fraud.

In turn, HMRC in the UK now have the same level of access (you may remember the fuss about access to UK bank accounts etc, which goes live in 2017), again to get the picture.

Any doubt, get PROFESSIONAL advice!

Thanks! I think I'm up-to-date with it all, fortunately!