What the AEAT’s Assessment Files Actually Reveal About Enforcement in 2025
Lullius Partners | February 2026
At Lullius Partners, we defend Beckham Law positions across Spain. We are routinely instructed in live inspections, and we review the assessment files that result from them. This article draws directly on anonymised inspection materials from cases in which we have been involved, specifically an Acta de Disconformidad (assessment in disagreement) and its corresponding Propuesta de Sancion (penalty proposal), both issued in the second half of 2025 by a Regional Inspectorate.
The purpose of this article is not academic. It is to show, with real-world precision, what the AEAT is doing inside Beckham Law inspections: the specific arguments deployed, the evidence standards applied, the penalty consequences, and the practical lessons for anyone currently benefiting from the regime.
The figures, entities, and identifying details have been fully anonymised. The reasoning, methodology, and enforcement patterns are reproduced faithfully.
1. The Profile Under Scrutiny
The taxpayer in question is a British national who relocated to Spain in 2018 and applied for the Beckham Law regime that same year. His professional background was in consultancy and business management, and he held directorships in several UK companies both before and after the move.
Upon arrival in Spain, a new Spanish limited company was incorporated. The taxpayer was hired as an employee of this company, and on that basis, he filed the Modelo 149 communication to elect into the special regime under Article 93 LIRPF. The Beckham election was duly processed by the Gestión Tributaria office, and the taxpayer filed Modelo 151 returns for the years 2019 to 2022, declaring only Spanish-source employment income in the range of approximately 21,000 to 38,000 euros per annum.
This picture, however, bore little resemblance to the economic reality that the Inspectorate would later reconstruct.
2. How the Inspection Was Triggered and Conducted
The inspection was initiated in mid-2024, covering IRPF and Wealth Tax for the periods 2019 to 2022, with general scope. Simultaneously, inspections were opened into the Spanish company and into a second individual, also a Beckham Law beneficiary employed by the same entity.
The procedural timeline is instructive. Over the course of approximately sixteen months, the Inspectorate issued nine formal diligencias, served multiple third-party information requests (to schools, landlords, banks, and cryptocurrency platforms), and systematically built a comprehensive factual dossier. The inspection covered everything from LinkedIn profiles and corporate websites to UK tax returns, bank account movements across multiple jurisdictions, and corporate governance records of the UK companies.
Two features of this inspection stand out.
First, the breadth of cross-referencing. The AEAT compared the taxpayer’s Spanish declarations (Modelo 151) against his UK self-assessment returns, which disclosed dividend income exceeding 325,000 pounds in a single year, capital gains from property disposals, rental income from three UK properties, and directorships in five UK companies. None of this had been reported in Spain.
Second, the systematic use of internet and public-source intelligence. The Inspectorate incorporated evidence from LinkedIn (where the taxpayer listed his role at the UK parent company, with no mention of the Spanish entity), corporate registries (Companies House data on directorships and shareholdings), and the UK companies’ own websites, which identified the taxpayer as a key figure and, notably, listed an office address in Barcelona.
3. The AEAT’s First Line of Attack: Simulation of the Employment Relationship
The centrepiece of the assessment is the finding of simulation under Article 16 of the Ley General Tributaria.
The Inspectorate’s reasoning, distilled to its essence, proceeds as follows.
The Spanish company was incorporated in mid-2018, shortly before the taxpayer’s formal relocation. It had no prior activity, no established client base, and no operational capacity independent of the taxpayer himself. The sole shareholder and administrator was a different individual, but the taxpayer was granted a general power of attorney (poder general mercantil) shortly after incorporation and, in practice, ran the company’s operations.
The company’s revenue was derived almost entirely from invoicing UK companies in which the taxpayer held shares and/or directorships. The largest client, a UK holding company, was one in which the taxpayer was both director and shareholder, and which publicly presented him as a senior figure. The invoiced amounts broadly corresponded to the amounts that the Spanish company then paid to the taxpayer as salary, supplemented by loans, personal expense payments, and school fees for the taxpayer’s child.
The AEAT identified ten specific indicia of simulation, which can be grouped into three categories.
Operational hollowness. The Spanish company lacked the human and material resources to deliver the services it invoiced. It had no independent client acquisition, no meaningful third-party contracts, and no commercial rationale beyond channelling the taxpayer’s personal services. Its sole function was to create the appearance of an employment relationship qualifying for Article 93.
Circularity and financial dependence. The taxpayer personally financed the company’s operations through loans, advancing funds before the company had received any revenue. The company maintained loan accounts and current accounts with the taxpayer, not with its own shareholder. This is the inverse of how a genuine employer-employee relationship functions.
Chronological and behavioural indicators. The company’s incorporation, the taxpayer’s employment contract, his registration with the Seguridad Social, and his Beckham Law application all occurred within a compressed window in 2018, consistent with a coordinated structure rather than a genuine commercial initiative. Meanwhile, the taxpayer continued to use his UK company email address for all professional correspondence, his LinkedIn profile referenced only his UK roles, and the UK companies’ websites identified him as based in Barcelona.
The AEAT characterised this as a “relative and subjective” simulation: relative, because the services were genuinely performed (the consultancy work existed), but by the individual, not the company; subjective, because what was disguised was not the nature of the services but the identity of the person providing them.
The legal consequence is stark. Once simulation is declared, the employment relationship is treated as non-existent. The foundational requirement of Article 93.1(b), that the move to Spain be motivated by a contract of employment, falls away. The Beckham Law regime is disapplied in its entirety, retroactively, for all years under review.
4. The Second Line of Attack: Permanent Establishment
The Inspectorate did not rest its case on simulation alone. It advanced a parallel argument under Article 93.1(c): the taxpayer obtained income through a permanent establishment in Spain, which independently disqualifies him from the regime.
The reasoning is direct. The taxpayer had a fixed place of business in Spain, the office premises leased by the Spanish company from which he worked daily, as well as his home on days when he teleworked. From these locations, he provided professional services to the UK companies on a continuous and habitual basis. This constitutes a “lugar fijo de negocios” within the meaning of Article 13.1(a) of the TRLIRNR and Article 5 of the OECD Model Convention.
The Inspectorate cited three binding Consultas from the Dirección General de Tributos to support this conclusion, including one involving an architect working from his Barcelona home for a Swiss company, where the DGT confirmed that the home constituted a base fija triggering Spanish taxing rights.
The taxpayer’s own statements were used against him. When asked to describe his working arrangements, he confirmed that the office had three large desks and a private office for his use, that he attended the office daily, and that he communicated with clients by telephone from there. This frank description, intended to demonstrate the reality of his work, instead provided the Inspectorate with a contemporaneous admission of a fixed place of business.
5. The Worldwide Income Reconstruction
With the Beckham Law regime disapplied, the taxpayer fell into the general IRPF regime, taxable on worldwide income under Article 2 LIRPF.
The Inspectorate proceeded to reconstruct the taxpayer’s full income picture for 2019 to 2022. The key adjustments were as follows.
Professional income. The revenue invoiced by the Spanish company to the UK entities was reattributed to the taxpayer as rendimientos de actividades económicas. After deducting allowable expenses (including the salaries of the company’s other employees, professional services, and banking costs), the net professional income ranged from approximately 15,000 euros in 2019 to over 243,000 euros in 2021, reflecting the growth in the UK companies’ billings.
Dividend income. The taxpayer had declared dividends totalling approximately 325,000 pounds in his 2019/20 UK tax return (from two UK companies in which he was shareholder and director), claimed as exempt in the UK on the basis of non-residence. These had never been reported in Spain. Once converted to euros at the ECB reference rates, the dividend income for 2019 alone exceeded 364,000 euros.
Rental income from UK properties. The taxpayer owned multiple properties in the UK generating rental income, which he had declared in the UK and partially in Spain under the Beckham regime. Under the general IRPF regime, the full amounts were brought into charge.
Capital gains. A UK property disposal in 2022 generated a gain that had been sheltered by the UK’s annual exempt amount. Under Spanish IRPF, this gain was fully taxable.
The resulting tax assessment for the four years totalled approximately 262,800 euros in additional tax, plus interest of approximately 41,000 euros, yielding a total debt of roughly 303,800 euros.
6. The Penalty Proceedings: Very Severe Infractions and 125% Sanctions
The penalty proposal is, if anything, more revealing than the assessment itself. It demonstrates the severity of the consequences when the AEAT frames a Beckham Law case as simulation.
Classification: Very Severe. The infractions for all four years (2019 to 2022) were classified as “muy grave” (very severe) under Article 191.4 of the LGT, on the basis that the taxpayer had employed “medios fraudulentos,” specifically the use of an interposed entity (persona interpuesta) under Article 184.3(c) LGT.
Culpability: Dolo. The Inspectorate found intentional conduct (dolo), not mere negligence. The reasoning is worth noting: the simulated employment arrangement was not a careless error or an ambiguous interpretation of the law; it was a deliberate and sustained scheme, repeated across four tax years, that could only be explained by the taxpayer’s conscious intention to reduce his tax burden.
The Inspectorate specifically rejected any defence based on interpretive doubt. The norm, it held, is clear; the taxpayer’s conduct was not the product of an arguable legal position but of a factual misrepresentation.
Sanction rate: 125%. The base sanction rate for a very severe infraction is 100%. This was increased by 25 percentage points for “perjuicio económico” (economic damage to the Treasury), because the underpaid tax exceeded 75% of what should have been declared in each period. The effective sanction rate was therefore 125%.
Total sanctions: approximately 329,150 euros. This figure represents the aggregate penalty across the four years.
Combined exposure. The total financial exposure from the assessment and penalties combined exceeds 632,900 euros, before considering any additional Wealth Tax assessments (which were being processed in parallel) and without taking into account potential criminal liability thresholds.
7. Critical Observations for Beckham Law Taxpayers
Several features of this inspection merit particular attention for anyone currently applying or considering the Beckham Law regime.
The Gestión Tributaria certificate offers no protection. The Inspectorate was explicit: the Modelo 149 processing by the Órganos de Gestión is a purely formal check, completed within ten working days, and based solely on the documentation provided by the taxpayer. It does not constitute a substantive verification of eligibility. The Inspectorate has full authority to re-examine compliance under Article 115.3 LGT, and will do so using evidence and analytical tools that the Gestión office could never have deployed.
UK tax returns are a primary evidence source. The AEAT obtains UK self-assessment data through automatic exchange of information and through direct requests. In this case, the taxpayer’s UK returns disclosed dividend income, capital gains, rental income, and directorships that were entirely absent from his Spanish filings. The cross-referencing was meticulous and devastating.
Internet presence is treated as probative evidence. LinkedIn profiles, corporate websites, press mentions, and even email domain names were incorporated into the evidentiary record. The taxpayer’s LinkedIn listed his UK company role with no mention of the Spanish entity. The UK company’s website identified an office in Barcelona. The taxpayer used a UK company email address for all professional purposes, including signing Spanish contracts. Each of these items, individually minor, was cumulatively powerful.
Financial flows are traced with forensic precision. The Inspectorate tracked bank account movements across six UK accounts, one German account, and one Spanish account, plus four business credit cards. It compared dividend declarations in UK returns against actual bank receipts, finding that many declared dividends could not be traced to corresponding deposits. It identified loan flows between the taxpayer and the company, and between the taxpayer and the UK entities, reconstructing a picture of financial circularity.
Simulation triggers the most severe penalty regime. Once the AEAT classifies a structure as simulated and identifies the use of an interposed entity, the infraction is automatically elevated to “very severe” with a minimum sanction of 100%, rising to 125% or even 150% with economic damage aggravation. The finding of dolo (intent) rather than negligence eliminates any possibility of a reduced penalty. This is not a technical adjustment with a 50% fine; it is a full-scale enforcement action with quasi-punitive consequences.
8. Lessons for Prevention and Defence
This case, and others we are seeing with increasing frequency, points to several practical imperatives.
The structure must be genuine, not merely documented. The difference between a defensible Beckham Law position and a vulnerable one does not lie in the quality of the paperwork, but in the commercial reality of the underlying arrangements. A Spanish company that exists solely to employ the taxpayer and invoice the taxpayer’s own foreign companies will not survive scrutiny, regardless of how carefully the employment contract is drafted.
Substance must be measurable and contemporaneous. The Inspectorate tested for real deliverables, independent clients, genuine operational capacity, and commercial justification. It required evidence that was not created for the inspection but existed in the ordinary course of business. Retrospective documentation carries limited evidentiary weight.
Cross-border reporting consistency is essential. Taxpayers who declare dividends, directorships, and property income in one jurisdiction while omitting them from another are creating the conditions for their own assessment. The automatic exchange of information under CRS and bilateral treaties means that discrepancies will surface.
A permanent establishment analysis must be conducted proactively. Any taxpayer who works from Spain, whether from a dedicated office, a co-working space, or a home office, and who provides services to foreign entities, must assess the PE risk before entering the regime. The PE exclusion under Article 93.1(c) is absolute, and the AEAT is applying it with increasing confidence.
Early intervention is decisive. In this case, the original advisers did not engage specialist Beckham Law counsel until the inspection was well advanced. By the time we were instructed, the factual record was substantially established. The opportunities for strategic management of the information flow and narrative construction, while not foreclosed, were materially constrained.
9. About Lullius Partners
Lullius Partners is a leading boutique law firm in Spain dedicated exclusively to tax law, private wealth, and tax litigation. Based in Mallorca with a nationwide practice, the firm was founded to serve a single, demanding constituency: high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, international families, entrepreneurs, and senior executives navigating the complexities of the Spanish tax system.
Our core discipline is Tax Litigation and Tax Dispute Resolution. This is not one of several practice areas; it is the foundation upon which the firm was built. We represent clients before the Spanish Tax Agency’s Inspectorate, before the Economic-Administrative Tribunals (TEAR and TEAC), and before the Courts at every level. We are engaged in live disputes across multiple inspectorates and jurisdictions within Spain, and the patterns, arguments, and enforcement strategies described in this article are drawn from that direct, ongoing experience.
Within our contentious practice, the Beckham Law regime occupies a position of particular depth and focus. We have been instructed in a significant number of AEAT inspections involving Article 93 LIRPF, covering the full spectrum of enforcement scenarios: simulation challenges, permanent establishment disputes, employment substance reviews, worldwide income reconstructions, and penalty proceedings at the most severe levels. We understand how these inspections are initiated, how they develop, what evidence the Inspectorate prioritises, and where the critical inflection points arise, because we see them first-hand, repeatedly, and across different regional inspectorates.
This concentration of contentious experience informs everything we do on the advisory side. When we advise a client on eligibility, structuring, or ongoing compliance, we are not applying the statute in the abstract; we are stress-testing the position against the specific audit methodologies and argumentative frameworks that we know the AEAT deploys in practice. That perspective, the perspective of a firm that regularly stands opposite the Inspectorate and advocates before the Tribunals, is fundamentally different from that of a firm whose Beckham Law work is confined to application filing and annual return preparation.
For clients already within the regime, our Beckham Law Compliance and Tax Audit Risk Review provides a structured, ongoing framework for identifying risk markers, building a defensible documentary record, and ensuring that, if an inspection arrives, the response is immediate, coherent, and strategically sound. For clients already under inspection, we bring the advocacy depth, procedural fluency, and tactical discipline that complex enforcement proceedings demand.
The Beckham Law remains a legitimate and exceptionally valuable tool for international mobility into Spain. But as this article demonstrates, the AEAT’s enforcement posture has evolved materially, and the consequences of inadequate preparation are severe. The regime requires not only careful entry, but sustained compliance discipline and, when the Inspectorate engages, immediate access to counsel with genuine depth in the subject matter.
