Tax and accounting in Pamplona

The Convenio Económico decides before any calculation

The Convenio Económico, the economic agreement between Navarre and the Spanish State, shares competence between the Comunidad Foral and the State. In broad terms, for an individual it is habitual residence that governs, and for a company what count are the tax address and the volume of operations carried out in each territory. Above a certain volume, a company operating inside and outside Navarre is taxed in proportion and files with both administrations.

We do not put that threshold or the coefficients here: they are checked against the text of the Convenio in force and its implementing rules, and saying them from memory would be exactly the kind of mistake that gets paid for afterwards. What we do assert is that this split is decided at the beginning and conditions everything else.

What changes for an individual in Pamplona

If you are resident in Navarre, your income tax return is not the state one: it is the Navarrese one, with its own scale, its own deductions and its own filing season. The same holds for inheritance and gift tax, which has Navarrese legislation of its own, and for a good part of the registration formalities.

The usual confusion arrives via the internet: nearly everything written in Spanish describes the common regime. A deduction that exists in common-regime territory may not exist here, and the other way round.

A point that is easy to miss from outside. Navarre is not a tax haven and it is not a separate country: a taxpayer's duties here are as demanding as anywhere else in Spain and the returns are as detailed. What differs is which parliament wrote the rule and which administration collects it. Reading a Navarrese case as though it were a Madrid one usually produces an answer close enough to sound right and wrong enough to cost money.

The international layer is common ground

A double tax treaty applies the same whether you are from Pamplona or from Cuenca. The same is true of the taxation of a non-resident who owns property here, of the inbound regime in article 93 of the Spanish income tax act where it is available, and of the reporting duties on assets held abroad.

Those are the matters we take on from beginning to end, normally alongside the client's provincial adviser, who keeps the Navarrese return. They are in the Beckham regime, Modelo 720 and non-residents.

The questions those three raise are the same on both sides of the Navarre border; the rules that answer them are not. Navarre has its own income tax, its own regime for people who move there to work (not article 93 of the state law) and its own reporting of assets held abroad, filed with the provincial tax office, and the Convenio Económico decides which administration each tax belongs to. That is why a Pamplona file works best split in two from the start, with the provincial adviser filing and us on the international side, and the split written down.

Who writes to us from Pamplona

Who	What they usually face
Company with clients inside and outside Navarre	Knowing what proportion is taxed in each administration and how it is documented
Professional moving to Navarre mid-year	Which administration is theirs for that year and how residence is evidenced
Employee arriving from abroad to a company here	Whether a special regime reaches them and what deadline they have to apply
Non-resident owner with a flat in Pamplona	Modelo 210 per property and per owner, let or empty
Family with assets across several territories	Which rules apply to each asset and which administration is competent

Working with Pamplona, remotely

The split first, the numbers afterwards. We spend the first session establishing which administration is competent for each item, and we put it in writing. It is the least showy part of the work and the one that prevents most of the trouble that would otherwise come later.

For the rest, remotely and at a fixed price, in Spanish, English and French. And with the habit of warning you when something is arguable, even where a comfortable answer might exist.

We also put a limit in writing on what we take on, which saves arguments later. The Navarrese part goes to the firm you appoint in Pamplona; the state and cross-border part is ours; and anything neither of us claims gets named, so that it is not quietly dropped. We do not guarantee an outcome before either administration, because that is not something anyone can honestly offer.

A Pamplona heir with his mother's flat in Málaga

This is the case in which someone living in Pamplona really needs us, even though his own income tax is Navarrese. His mother lived in Málaga for her last years and leaves a flat worth 190,000 € and an account with 35,000 € to her two children: him, in Pamplona, and his sister, in Málaga. Inheritance Tax is not decided by where the heirs live but by where the deceased lived: the region where she spent the most days in the five years before her death. Here, Andalusia, with its own rules and before the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government.

Matter	Rules and administration	Who handles it
Inheritance Tax for both siblings, 112,500 € each	Andalusian, before the Junta de Andalucía	Us
Plusvalía municipal on inheriting the flat	Málaga City Council's by-law	Us
Change of IBI holder and notice to the Cadastre	Municipal and cadastral	Us
If he lets or sells afterwards, his income tax	Navarrese foral rules, before the Navarre tax authority	His Pamplona adviser, with whom we coordinate
If his sister lets or sells, her income tax	Common	Us, if she asks us to

Andalusia's own reduction for descendants is checked against the text in force on the date of death; in inheritances of this size it usually leaves the tax very low or at zero, but that does not exempt anyone from filing. The deadlines are the usual ones: six months, with an extension if requested within the first five. The form is the one for inheritances and gifts, and the division of powers is in the table of competences for the tax.

What the Navarrese heir cannot do from Pamplona

Much of the inheritance is dealt with in writing and remotely, but three things require coordinating dates in Málaga: signing the acceptance before a notary, if it is not done by power of attorney; the valuation or the official reference value of the flat, which conditions everything else; and the siblings' decision on whether to sell or to divide. That decision matters for tax, because if one takes the flat and compensates the other in cash, the excess can have consequences of its own. We look at it before the notary drafts anything.

And there is a calendar that runs even if nobody signs anything: the six months for Inheritance Tax count from the death, not from when the siblings reach agreement. If the division is going to be delayed, the prudent course is to request the extension within the first five months or to file on time with the estate still undivided and adjust later. What is unwise is to let the deadline pass waiting for an agreement, because the surcharge runs the same for both.