Opening a letter from the Spanish Tax Agency without panicking: a guide to the first 48 hours

A letter from the Spanish Tax Agency is any communication, information request, proposed assessment or electronic notification that the Spanish Tax Agency (Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria, AEAT) sends to a taxpayer or a company as part of a tax procedure.

When that notice arrives in your letterbox or in your company’s single authorised electronic address (DEHú), almost every business owner asks the same questions: what to do with the letter from the Tax Agency and whether they need a lawyer. The answer depends on the type of notification, but one thing applies to all of them: what you do (or fail to do) in the first 48 hours shapes the outcome.

What type of letter from the Tax Agency have you received (and why it matters)

The type of letter you have received determines the deadline, the real risk and the response strategy. A simple request for documents is not the same as the start of an inspection or a penalty procedure. Before writing a single line, work out which category your notification falls into:

• Information notice: does not require a response, but often anticipates a later review.
• Information request: the AEAT asks for specific invoices, contracts or supporting documents.
• Proposed provisional assessment (known in Spain as a “paralela”): the Tax Agency has found a discrepancy between your return and the data it holds, proposes an adjustment and gives you 10 to 15 days to submit representations, under article 99.8 of the General Tax Act (in Spanish).
• Start of a limited review procedure: a review confined to certain items of a return, without examining the company’s statutory accounts.
• Start of a tax inspection: an in-depth review, with powers to examine the full accounts and visit the company’s premises.
• Enforcement order (providencia de apremio): the debt is now enforceable and has entered the enforcement stage.

Type of notification	What it means	Deadline to respond	Risk if you do nothing
Information request	Request for documents or explanations	10 working days as a general rule (art. 87 RGAT)	Fine from €150 (up to €600,000 in an inspection of a business)
Proposed provisional assessment	Adjustment of a specific tax year	10 to 15 days for representations (art. 99.8 General Tax Act)	The proposal becomes an assessment without your arguments
Limited review	Targeted review of a return	As set for each step (usually 10 working days)	Provisional assessment and possible penalty proceedings
Tax inspection	Full review of the tax position	As set for each step; 15 days to contest the inspection report	Adjustment and possible penalty proceedings
Enforcement order	Debt in the enforcement stage	Until the 20th of the month or the 5th of the following month, depending on the notification date	20% surcharge plus interest and seizure of assets

What to do in the first 48 hours (and when to call a lawyer)

Acting sensibly from the outset avoids the two most common mistakes among business owners: responding hastily without understanding the real scope of the request, or letting the deadline pass through lack of awareness. In the first 48 hours, the order of your actions matters as much as the actions themselves:

1. Identify the exact type of notification and the procedure it belongs to (management, limited review, inspection or collection).
2. Find the actual notification date, not the date printed on the document: on paper, it is the day of delivery; electronically, it is the day you open it or, if you do not, the day on which 10 calendar days have passed since it was made available. The deadline starts the following day.
3. Check the DEHú and the e-office mailbox if your company is required to deal with the AEAT electronically: it is common for a notification to expire in the mailbox without anyone having seen it.
4. Gather the related documents (invoices, contracts, bank statements, previous returns) before drafting any response.
5. Do not reply on your own if the letter affects the tax base or proposes an assessment: whatever you state in that response stays on the file and, if poorly framed, may end up being used by the Tax Agency to support its own assessment.
6. Consult a tax lawyer, especially when income abroad, non-resident shareholders or IRPF and IRNR issues beyond routine compliance are involved.

What happens if you do not respond in time

Failing to respond to a letter from the Tax Agency within the deadline has consequences that go beyond a simple penalty. The effects build up in a cascade:

• Penalty for resistance or obstruction (art. 203 General Tax Act): as a general rule, €150 for the first request ignored, €300 for the second and €600 for the third. If the request is made during an inspection of a person carrying on business activities, the fines are €3,000 and €15,000 and, on the third failure, proportional to turnover, up to a maximum of €600,000.
• Loss of the chance to submit representations: the proposal becomes an assessment without you having been able to challenge it, and anything you do not argue now will be harder to prove later.
• Indirect estimation of the tax base: in an inspection, if lack of cooperation prevents your real figures from being established, the Tax Agency can determine the base using indirect methods, which are almost always unfavourable.
• Enforcement stage: if the debt is not paid within the voluntary period, a surcharge arises of 5% (if you pay before receiving the enforcement order), 10% (if you pay within the period set by the order) or 20% plus late-payment interest (if you do not pay within that period).

Application for review or economic-administrative claim: how to choose

When the letter from the Tax Agency is already an assessment or decision you disagree with, there are two routes of challenge, which cannot be pursued at the same time:

• Application for review (recurso de reposición) (in Spanish): optional, filed with the same body that issued the decision, within one month from the day after notification.
• Economic-administrative claim (in Spanish): filed with the competent Economic-Administrative Tribunal, also within one month. If you have already filed an application for review, you will have to wait for it to be decided (or deemed rejected) before taking this route.

Choosing the wrong route, or letting the one-month deadline pass because you are not sure which one applies, is one of the mistakes that most often turns a debatable assessment into a final debt.

Why international taxation complicates a letter from the Tax Agency

Notifications from the Spanish Tax Agency become particularly delicate when the company or its shareholders have an international dimension: non-resident directors or shareholders, income earned outside Spain, structures with a parent or subsidiary abroad, or executives taxed under IRNR instead of IRPF.

In these cases, a review that starts as a simple request for documents can end up questioning tax residence, the application of a double tax treaty or the correct taxation of dividends, allowances or cross-border income.

Precisely because IRPF and IRNR in international contexts require knowledge not only of Spanish law but also of bilateral treaties and EU law, entrusting the matter to general tax advice is rarely enough. A tax lawyer with experience in international taxation will spot, for example, when a proposed assessment on income earned abroad rests on a misreading of the double tax treaty, and when it is worth appealing before the one-month deadline expires.

Frequently asked questions

How long do I have to respond to a letter from the Spanish Tax Agency?

It depends on the type of notification: an information request generally allows 10 working days; representations against a proposed assessment, between 10 and 15 days. In both cases, the period runs from the day after notification.

What happens if I do not respond to a request from the Tax Agency?

You risk a penalty that, as a general rule, ranges from €150 to €600 depending on the number of requests ignored, and that can be much higher in an inspection of a business. You also lose the chance to submit representations and, in an inspection, make it easier for the authorities to estimate your tax base indirectly.

Is an information request the same as the start of an inspection?

No. A request asks for specific documents or information, usually within a management procedure; the start of an inspection opens a full review of your tax position, with wider scope and potentially more serious consequences.

Can I ask the Tax Agency for more time to respond?

Yes. You can request an extension, which cannot exceed half the original period and must be requested at least three days before it expires (art. 91 RGAT). It is not granted in every case, so you should not count on it unless you have requested it in time.

Do I need a lawyer to respond to a letter from the Tax Agency?

It is not compulsory, but it is strongly recommended when the letter affects the tax base, proposes an assessment or involves income abroad, non-resident shareholders or IRPF and IRNR issues.

What is the difference between an application for review and an economic-administrative claim?

Both have a one-month deadline and cannot be filed at the same time. The application for review is optional and decided by the same body that issued the decision; the economic-administrative claim is decided by an Economic-Administrative Tribunal, a body independent of the one that issued the assessment.

What happens if I do not check the electronic notifications mailbox?

If your company is required to receive electronic notifications, once 10 calendar days have passed without you opening the mailbox, the notification is deemed rejected and has the same effect as if you had read it: the deadlines start running regardless.

What should I do in the first 48 hours after receiving a letter from the Tax Agency?

Identify the type of notification, confirm the actual date it was served, gather the related documents and consult a tax lawyer before responding, especially if there are international elements.

Acting in the first 48 hours shapes the outcome of the procedure

The difference between a letter from the Tax Agency that is closed with no consequences and one that ends in enforcement does not usually lie in the substance of the matter, but in how the first hours are handled: correctly identifying the notification, respecting the actual deadline and providing the documents with the backing of a tax lawyer stops an administrative step from turning into a final debt or an avoidable penalty.

At Riera Consulting we have spent more than four decades defending business owners and SMEs before the Spanish Tax Agency, with particular expertise in IRPF and IRNR in international contexts. If you have received a letter from the Tax Agency, the best decision is to have a lawyer review it while there is still time, not at the last minute. Write to Riera Consulting and let’s make the deadline work in your favour.