TweetSpain’s General Directorate of Taxes (Dirección General de Tributos DGT) has announced it will treat all virtual currencies such as Bitcoin as financial payment methods and thus will be exempt from the VAT rate of 21%. Previously treated as a commodity, Bitcoin users were often taxed twice for purchases using the crypto-currency, however now the […]
A Freelance Guide to Autonomo Expenses in Spain
TweetWorking as a freelance professional in Spain can be costly taking into account Social Security charges, IRPF (income tax) rates, accountant and advisor fees, not to mention transport and living expenses. However, the Income Tax Return, filed quarterly and annually (by June 30 2015 for 2014 taxes), will gauge how much you’re taxed on your […]
Spain leads EU’s SME Initiative for cheaper credit worth €3.2 billion
TweetSpain is the first EU country to sign up to the ‘SME initiative’ offering €3.2 billion worth of cheaper loans to Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs). Companies with less than 250 employees will be able to take advantage of this new loan in the coming few months – likely to be available by Summer […]
Spain passes new law to combat illegal fishing and rings in praise from NGOs
TweetNew Spanish law 33/2014 has marked tougher penalties for Spanish citizens involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing anywhere in the world. As Europe’s largest fishing member state (followed by UK, France and Italy) Spain represents 20% of Europe’s fishing capacity and employs the most number of people in the fishing industry. This an important […]
Small businesses in Spain closing doors at end of Ley Boyer
TweetSmaller businesses are being forced to close as landlords raise commercial property rents resulting from the 20 year ‘Ley Boyer’ ending on January 1st 2015. The law introduced in 1994 protected businesses whose lease had begun before 1985, exempting them from rent increases for 20 years (inflation-linked). This gave many family businesses the opportunity to […]
Google News shutting down in Spain
TweetSpain’s protectionist attempt at taxing news aggregators such as Google, for linking to Spanish News sites has dramatically backfired leaving Spanish news publishers cut off from Google’s immense traffic of 10 billion clicks to publisher websites per month. Hoping to reap €80 million a year for the Association of Editors of Spanish Dailies (AEDE) effective from January,the […]
Uber forced to shut down operations today in Spain following Taxi Association opposition
Tweet Uber, the car ride sharing app, has been forced to shut down operations from today, Judges in Madrid have ordered. Following protests by Spanish taxi associations, and ‘cautionary measures’ supporting a future court case presented by the Madrid Tax Association against the Californian based startup, the judge passed the decision that Uber drivers “lack […]
U.S. Expatriated Entrepreneurs and Apple Tax Rules: Not All That Different.
TweetBack in 2013 the Offshore Leaks report, the crisis in Cyprus and the US Senate’s probe of Apple’s tax affairs injected renewed urgency into a global effort to crack down on aggressive tax avoidance. In fact, governmental authorities alleging that Apple had avoided billions of dollars in taxes shone an unforgiving spotlight on the international […]
World’s longest rail road: China to Madrid in 21 days on the Yixin’ou cargo train
TweetChina has just launched the complete new cargo transport route “Yixin’ou” connecting Yiwu, China’s eastern wholesale capital nicknamed China Commodity City, straight to Madrid via Central Asia. The first train trip arrived last Tuesday with the 82 container train travelling 13,000 km over 21 days. The longest China-European train line to date, this new cargo […]
Spain’s population set to decline from 2015
TweetAnnual population growth in Spain has been modest since 2009 and negative since 2012 – more people are dying and less babies are being born in Spain. This could be explained largely by the economic crisis, mixed with proportionally more women in the workplace, less women of child bearing age, and smaller family sizes. With this […]