Información and El Periódico report how Víctor Riera took the Spanish Tax Agency to Brussels

The newspaper Información has published an in-depth feature on Víctor Riera, managing partner of Riera Consulting, headlined “The Alicante lawyer who beat the Spanish tax authorities without being Shakira”. The article, published on 31 May 2026, reports that the European Commission has issued a reasoned opinion against Spain, the last step before referring the case to the Court of Justice of the EU, requiring it to amend its tax legislation so that the main homes of EU officials and inbound workers under the impatriate regime receive the same tax treatment as those of other residents.

The feature traces the origins of the case more than a decade ago, with an official of the then OHIM (now EUIPO) whom the Spanish Tax Agency treated as a non-resident despite living in Alicante, and sets out the three fronts of the discrimination: deemed income on the home under Non-Resident Income Tax, tax on the gain when the home is sold even if the proceeds are reinvested in a new one, and Wealth Tax without the main-home exemption. It also describes the complaint Víctor Riera filed with the European Commission in 2020, which he later extended to digital nomads and Beckham Law taxpayers.

Following the reasoned opinion, Spain has two months to put things right. Víctor Riera expects the case to end up before the CJEU and to open the door to refunds, with interest, for taxpayers who keep their claims open.

Read the full feature in Información (in Spanish).

El Periódico also covered the case: «En un hecho sin precedentes, el abogado alicantino Víctor Riera ha llevado a la Agencia Tributaria al borde del abismo» (“In an unprecedented move, Alicante lawyer Víctor Riera has pushed the Spanish Tax Agency to the edge of the abyss”).