Skip to main content

Packaging

The Economic-Administrative Courts resolve the economic-administrative claims, which for over 100 years have been a special remedy in Spain to contest the tax acts before the Administration itself. The origin of the economic-administrative approach lies in the separation between the areas of tax management in a broad sense and the resolution of claims against such management, which are currently called the application of taxes and the imposition of sanctions and the resolution of claims against this application of taxes and the imposition of sanctions. Economic-administrative complaints are the necessary instrument for those who wish to challenge the acts of the Tax Administration and subsequently access the judicial route, if necessary.

The Economic-Administrative Courts, despite their designation of courts, are not courts. In fact, despite the functional independence they enjoy, it should be noted that they are integrated into this Ministry, within the Ministry of Finance. They are therefore set up as special administrative bodies, in correlation with the uniqueness of the tax activity, with their own notes and characteristics as a result of their functional independence and separation from the bodies responsible for the application of taxes and the imposition of sanctions.

The economic-administrative approach has certain advantages for the citizens compared to other ways of contesting:

  • The decision corresponds to a detached body from whom the act is issued, which gives it a higher degree of objectivity to the appeal in which the upper hierarchical superior resolves.

  • In the cases, in principle, more complex, it resolves by majority a collegiate body, which gives it a greater probability of success.

  • Its components are experts in the matters to which complaints refer, which gives it a high degree of specialization.

  • It is a free procedure for citizens and does not require legal assistance, although there is nothing to prevent the citizen from making use of it voluntarily.

Finally, it should be noted that there are also economic-administrative bodies in the Autonomous Communities and bodies have been created for the resolution of the economic-administrative claims in the municipalities of Great Population. They receive different denominations and do not fall within the Ministry of Finance, but within the Tax Administrations of the Autonomous Communities and Local Authorities, governed by their specific regulations.