Last year, 40,700 million were moved through operations carried out with Bizum, an immediate payment solution via mobile phone that is booming in Spain and whose use may raise doubts among taxpayers. The Tax Agency clarifies that payment methods, such as bank cards or instant payment applications, have no tax effects. However, the income received through them must be declared to the Treasury based on the concept for which they were received.
When assessing whether an income is liable to be taxed in the Personal Income Tax (IRPF), the taxpayer must discern whether it is a return obtained from an economic activity or not. So “you don’t have to include it in the statement if it’s just a matter of settling accounts”, for example, for the purchase of a gift or joint trip whose amount a friend has advanced, explains Paula Urcera, head of TaxDown’s tax area.
Another different thing are the self-employed who, in order to speed up transactions, allow their customers to pay with methods such as Bizum instead of requesting transfers or card payments. In this case “it is a consideration for a service or product”, so they would have to be taxed, just as would happen if the payment had been made by card.
For their part, the individual must declare the income received through Bizum that is an economic return. For example, in the case of giving courses and conferences, it should be taxed as “other income that does not derive from the transmission”, whose tax base is added to the general base, so that the tax percentage would be equal to that of a self-employed or employed, as detailed by Urcera. Likewise, the profits obtained by renting storage rooms or parking spaces must be declared as a return on real estate capital, income that must also be taxed with VAT if they are rented independently of the home.
There is another case in which an individual should declare a payment made through Bizum: when there has been a profit derived from consumption. A very common case is second-hand sales, in which the purchase value of the product is usually higher than the subsequent sale value, so they should not be declared. “The law says that losses derived from consumption cannot be included in the declaration,” explains the TaxDown expert.
However, you must be able to justify what the item cost when it was purchased. If not, the amount of the sale must be included in the declaration and be taxed on the savings basis in the section “Equity gains and losses derived from transfers of other assets”. In this case, the applicable tax would be 19% up to 6,000 euros, 21% between 6,001 and 50,000 euros, 23% between 50,001 and 200,000 euros, and 26% for higher amounts.
