Company audit in Spain

What is a company audit?

A company audit is an inspection conducted by the Spanish tax authority. During this inspection, the authority requires various information from you, such as evidence of your trade movements. A list of the most commonly requested data/documents can be found further below. The documents are usually requested step by step. However, the deadlines are often very tight and delayed submission comes with a high risk.

What risks does a company audit involve?

If requested documents can't be submitted in time, fines can be charged or, in the worst case, your Spanish VAT ID can be revoked. We explain the importance of the VAT ID in this blog article. 

How long does a company audit take?

A company audit typically lasts several months. We're unable to say how long exactly, since every company audit is different. The duration of a company audit varies significantly depending on the audit areas of the tax authority and the volume of the requested data.

Can Taxdoo oversee my company audit for me?

We'll be glad to handle overseeing your company audit together with our partners on location. Oversight includes all communication with the Spanish tax authority. We'll promptly notify you which information is needed and where it can be found. Of course, we are also always available to answer any of your questions that arise during the company audit.

A company audit involves a lot of work for us and our partners. For this reason, we charge a lump sum of EUR 1,500 for this service.

Which documents do I need to provide to the Spanish tax authority and where can I obtain them?

This differs from case to case. In our experience, the Spanish tax authority asks for information piece by piece. Each information request is usually subject to a very tight deadline. To minimise the risk of submitting information late (e.g. due to a delayed response from partners like Amazon), we have prepared a list of the most commonly requested documents. In order to comply with any deadlines, we kindly ask that you provide us with the listed documents as quickly as possible. We'll then submit them promptly to the tax authority upon request.

However, after submitting the information and documents, the tax authority may make further demands, which can vary depending on the individual case (e.g. evidence of movements).

Here's an overview of the documents and information typically requested in our experience:

• Pro forma invoices that prove that you conduct EU transactions and send goods to Spain.
• Invoices to customers; the last 10 B2C invoices are required in which goods are sold from the Spanish warehouse.
• Evidence of goods transport; in the case of Amazon FBA, evidence of the agreement with Amazon is sufficient.
• VAT records for the audit period (incoming and outgoing invoices taxable in Spain). The records are requested in a certain format; we'll be glad to provide you with an example. In the case of B2B sales, the NIF (tax numbers) and in the case of B2C sales, the names of the customers must be stated.

The first three requirements refer to current transactions. For instance, they may originate from the last month.

My company audit has finished and I am not sure if the result is right.

We'll be glad to examine the result of your company audit with our partners if we have also overseen the audit. Our partners will check any opportunity to reduce an existing tax burden and contact the Spanish tax authority in this regard.

If we did not oversee your company audit, we're unfortunately unable to check whether the result is correct. The work involved in this case would not be covered by the costs incurred and we would not be able to guarantee that we could examine the entire company audit in time.