The rental of a storage room or a parking lot is subject to paying VAT of 21%. It is only exempt if it is rented together with a dwelling. When the parking or storage rooms pay VAT, the owner will be obliged to present the quarterly declaration of the tax to pay it to the State. Even if it’s only a few euros.
This is one of the most frequent errors that taxpayers make and that agencies detect. “From our experience, people are not aware that VAT must be charged for a car park and then declared,” reflects Xavier Masdeu, from the Associació de Tècnics Tributaris. When someone rents a parking lot for 100 euros, the tenant is actually paying 83 for the space plus 21% VAT (17 euros).
But it is not the only determining factor. The ownership structure of the home and the accessory property (either parking or storage room) must be the same. Therefore, if a couple owns an apartment halfway but the parking is only for one of the two, the latter must be rented independently with another contract. In that case, you should collect VAT and later pay it to the Treasury.
Obviously, when the IRPF declaration is presented, the taxpayer must declare everything obtained from the rental as income. Logically, the VAT must be deducted since the owner delivered it to the tax authorities through the corresponding quarterly declarations.
Masdeu adds that in the case of car parks and storage rooms, when VAT is not declared it is not usually due to a desire to defraud but rather due to ignorance of the norm.
The possibility that the car parks or storage rooms are in a contract apart from the house is a case that grew in communities such as Catalonia while the law on rental price limitations was in force. As the rent cap was only for the house, the owners segregated the parking or storage room to charge more. In this case, if there are two contracts, VAT must be paid for the parking.
The purchase of parking lots and storage rooms also have a different tax treatment than that of homes. The purchase of a home is taxed at 10% (either VAT in the case of new ones or property transfers in used ones) and parking lots at 21% (VAT or property transfers). But the law provides that two parking spaces and/or a storage room can be purchased at the same time as a home. In this case, all properties pay 10%. If they are purchased separately, the aforementioned 21% rate must be paid for new ones.
Therefore, from a tax planning point of view, it is always better to buy a parking space (or two) together with the new home than to choose to do it after the fact.