It is common in certain professions to issue invoices for specific jobs that are carried out outside the company in which one is hired. Doctors, teachers and journalists are part of the long list of professionals who occasionally earn extra income thanks to teaching classes, participating in conferences or writing articles. The problem arises when it comes to filing accounts with the Tax Agency: how should these profits be included in the income tax return?
The experts on the Personal Income Tax (IRPF) consulted maintain that they must be declared as earned income, so they will be taxed on the general tax base, taxed at rates ranging from 19% to 47%, depending on the income level, personal situation and the autonomous community in which one resides. However, it could happen that Social Security interprets that the activity for which you are billing is carried out on a regular basis and that, therefore, the regulations that require registration as self-employed in these cases are being breached and, in Consequently, tax the income as income from professional activities.
“The law speaks of ‘habituality’ of economic activity, an indeterminate concept that generates legal uncertainty,” comments Francisco Serantes, coordinator of the Personal Income Tax Expert Group of the Spanish Association of Tax Advisors (AEDAF). In this sense, he regrets that the regulations do not establish an economic or other type of threshold to determine when the taxpayer must register as a self-employed worker.
A decision that also depends, he clarifies, on the nature of the activity that is carried out sporadically. In fact, law 35/2006, of November 28, on personal income tax contemplates particular rules for some specific activities that allow declaration as income from work. This category includes profits derived from teaching courses, conferences, colloquiums, seminars and the like, as well as those that come from the production of literary, artistic or scientific works, provided that the right to their exploitation is transferred.
In other cases, income from work will also be considered “as long as certain requirements are met,” explains Valeria Hernández, tax expert at TaxDown. In addition to transferring the right to exploitation, the activity must arise from a special employment relationship with the company that the commission agents or commercial agents represent, or from an employment or statutory relationship in the case of professionals who teach.
However, in general it is stipulated that if the income derives “from the self-management of means of production and human resources or from one of both” they will be considered income from professional activities. Thus, while an occasional speaker who participates in an event organized by a company may tax this activity as income from work, a house painter who uses his own resources must declare his earnings (even if they are punctual) as income from an activity. economical. In the latter case, there would be an obligation to register with the Treasury in order to provide the service and, therefore, issue the corresponding invoice.
“As for the obligation to register with Social Security and having to pay the self-employed fee, it will be determined by the regularity of the benefit. If it can be justified that there is no regularity, it would not have to be registered,” Hernández clarifies. The situation would be resolved in this case, he continues, “by registering only with the Treasury and declaring these income in the economic activities section of your income tax return.”
