Tax and accounting in Logroño

The grower inside the special VAT regime

The special regime for agriculture, livestock and fishing works the opposite way round from the ordinary one: a farmer inside it charges no VAT on that activity and files no Modelo 303, the quarterly VAT return, and equally does not deduct the tax borne on purchases. In exchange, the buyer pays a flat-rate compensation on the sale price, which the farmer keeps as recompense for the input tax.

The percentage of that compensation is set by statute and has been amended in recent years, so there is no point in learning it by heart: the rate in force is checked before each harvest. What is worth being clear about is that the regime has turnover limits and exclusions, and that processing the product or selling from your own premises can put you outside it without your having decided anything.

The bodega that buys grapes: the other half of the transaction

Whoever buys from a farmer inside the special regime does not receive an invoice with VAT on it: they pay the compensation, and it is they who have to document the transaction by means of a receipt signed by the supplier. That receipt is the voucher that allows the compensation paid to be deducted, in the same way input VAT is deducted.

Leaving the special regime

You can opt out, and sometimes it pays to: if you are about to make a heavy investment — a planting, machinery, a building — input VAT is not deductible inside the special regime and it is in the ordinary one. The waiver, however, binds you for a minimum period before you can go back, and it drags the income tax assessment regime along with it, so it is not a stand-alone decision.

The arithmetic behind that choice is not complicated, but it has to be done with real figures: the input tax you expect to bear on the investment, set against the compensations you would stop collecting over the years the waiver ties you in for.

From that point record books appear, Modelo 303 each quarter, the annual summary and the right to deduct input tax. It is a change of system rather than an adjustment, and it is planned a full year ahead. The registration and quarterly mechanics are in self-employed in Spain.

Selling abroad, and the deductions of La Rioja

When the bodega starts selling to other countries of the Union, in come the ROI, the Spanish register of intra-EU operators, the check on the customer's number and Modelo 349, the recapitulative statement of intra-EU transactions, which has to reconcile with Modelo 303. There are also documentary obligations specific to the alcoholic drinks sector, unrelated to VAT, which are reviewed with whoever handles the bodega's logistics: they are not tax obligations in the strict sense, but they get checked all the same.

In income tax, La Rioja approves regional deductions of its own, with their own requirements and income limits. They change from one year to the next, so there are no figures here: the rule for the year being declared is read and we check which ones fit, because the draft return does not bring them in by itself.

Who writes to us from Logroño

Position in the chain	What has to be settled
A grower inside the special regime	The compensation in force, the limits of the regime and whether opting out suits them
A bodega buying from small suppliers	Signed receipts and deducting the compensations paid
Somebody about to invest in planting or machinery	Whether waiving the special regime pays, and what the waiver ties up
A bodega starting to export	Registration on the European register and Modelo 349 reconciled with Modelo 303
An owner letting out vineyard	Immovable capital, with no residential reduction, and what the contract says

How we work with clients in Logroño

On the calendar of the harvest rather than the calendar of the office. Decisions about the regime are taken before the vendimia and the documentary circuits are built before the first grapes arrive: by January all that is left is to declare what happened.

We are lawyers and we also keep the books, which means the figures and the case for them are made by the same person. Where something being applied is open to argument, you get our reading in writing, the risk it carries and what it would take to sustain it; the decision to take that risk is yours, and we do not dress it up as a certainty.

A Logroño grape grower facing an investment: the VAT sum

A grower on the outskirts of Logroño, in the special agricultural VAT regime, plans to buy a grape harvester and a tractor in 2027 for 60,000 € plus 12,600 € of VAT. In the special regime that VAT is not recovered; in the general regime, it is. But switching has its trade-offs:

	Special agricultural regime	General regime
VAT on the machinery (12,600 €)	Lost: it becomes extra cost and extra depreciation	Deducted on Modelo 303
Sale of the grapes	No VAT; the grower receives the flat-rate compensation	VAT charged at the applicable rate and the difference paid in
Obligations	No 303 and no VAT books	Quarterly 303, 390 and books
If he returns to the special regime within the next four years	—	Part of the VAT deducted on the machinery is adjusted back
Lock-in	—	The waiver binds for three years

With 12,600 € of VAT at stake, the waiver may pay off, but only if charging VAT on the grapes for three years does not eat up what is recovered, and that depends on sales and on the applicable rate, which are calculated with the farm's own figures, not with an average. What should not be done is to buy first and ask afterwards. A self-employed person's 303 is explained in Modelo 303.

The calendar of a La Rioja grape grower

When	What
December	Decide on waiving the special VAT regime and módulos (the flat-rate income tax system) for the following year, on Modelo 036
1 to 20 April, July and October; the fourth quarter until 30 January	Advance payment under módulos, unless at least 70 % of the previous year's income carried withholding
April to the end of June	Income tax return, with the La Rioja regional deductions that fit
Before the harvest	Agree with the bodega the receipts for the compensation

To run that sum we ask for four things: grape sales and the compensation received over the last three harvests, the investments planned for the next four years, expected sales over that period, and whether the buying bodega can take an invoice with VAT instead of the compensation. With that, what is recovered is weighed against what stops being received as compensation and what it costs to keep the 303. Sometimes the answer is clear one way; sometimes the difference does not pay for the work of switching.

The compensation paid by the bodegas, for its part, is part of the grower's income for income tax, even though for VAT it is simply a reimbursement: under módulos it is added to the turnover to which the crop's index is applied. Forgetting it when filing is common, and it shows up when the figures are matched against what the bodegas declare.