There’s encouraging news for anyone trying to claim back overpaid capital gains tax from the Spanish Government, as a British couple become the first successful claimants to win back their money.

It’s nearly a year since Spanish lawyers Costa, Alvarez, Manglano and Associates (CAM&A), and currency brokers HiFX, together exposed the Spanish Government Capital Gains Tax scam. In March 2008, the two organisations revealed that non-Spaniards who sold properties in Spain between March 2004 and December 2006 were charged a hefty income tax rate of 35% on any Capital Gains, despite Spanish nationals only paying 15%.

They claimed that the charge contravened the European Community Treaty rules on discrimination and that it was against the rules for the Spanish Government to have made the charge. Plus, the Spanish Government could have made up to £350 million as a result of it.

To help bring justice to all those affected by the overpayment, CAM&A and HiFX launched Spanish Tax Reclaim last year and encouraged anyone who could have been affected to get in touch with them.

Many people did and, in addition to the successful claimants, 600 other British people are in the process of having their cases put forward to the Spanish Court. Between them they could be in line for reclaiming about £8.4 million, plus interest (the average tax reclaim is £14,100, plus interest). However, it’s thought that as many as 10,000 Brits could still be affected by the tax issue and entitled to claim up to £140 million.

If you sold a property in Spain between March 2004 and December 2006, then check out the Spanish Tax Reclaim website for more details of how to register a claim.

Taxes

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 am and is filed under Finance, Spain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.