The odyssey for those affected by the Fórum Filatélico case, the biggest pyramid scam together with Afinsa (as the Supreme Court considered it), has not yet come to an end. It is almost two decades of vicissitudes for its victims. There were almost 270,000 Spaniards who lost their savings for trusting a company that promised fixed returns at the margin of the market and much higher than those offered by the banks. After a protracted legal process, the victims of the case were able to recover 23.5% of what they invested in it. In other words, they lost three out of four euros.
Close to twenty years since the outbreak of the case, the Treasury gave the defrauded a partial joy. It was a year ago now. It allowed them to deduct part of the property damage they suffered from their failed investment in their 2022 income statement. For some it was hundreds of euros and for others, thousands, depending on the investment they lost. The reason for the Tax Agency (AEAT) to open this possibility was that the courts closed the bankruptcy proceedings in July of last year. Many affected, those who found out about the tax innovation, registered the losses in their personal income tax.
Their joy did not last long. Weeks after the end of the last Income campaign, the Tax Agency delegations are opening tax checks for those affected by the Fórum Filatélico scam who had part of their losses deducted. The certified letters are arriving at homes and, according to AEAT sources, they will gradually reach all taxpayers who registered a property loss in their personal income tax. The documentation required by the Treasury is extensive: receipts for the payments collected (from the recovered investment), a document attesting to the patrimonial losses, a request to be included as a creditor of the philatelic company, as well as explanations of how obtain the value entered in the personal income tax and the concept of the declaration of losses.
Antonio Blázquez is 75 years old and has already received the certified letter from the Treasury. They demand that he justify a relief of 2,900 euros and he has ten working days to respond to the tax office. “I don’t know what to do, I’ll have to hire an adviser”, he explains. Like him, he assures, there are several people around him, retirees who, during their working stage, decided to invest in the philately company. Now, he regrets, he does not have the knowledge or the means to be able to respond to the information requested by the Tax Agency. “I don’t have any documentation; my wife keeps a paper from 2006, but I don’t and I can’t prove anything after so many years”. He only has handwritten notes, which are not valid for the Tax Agency, of the money he has recovered these years.
Everything gets complicated when requesting from the bank the proof of payments made by the bankruptcy administration of Fórum Filatélico. It is one of the requirements of the Tax Agency. These subscriptions were made through Barclays, but more than a decade has passed and this institution is now CaixaBank. At the branch, those affected receive this reply: “It is impossible to access the movements of so many years ago, the system only allows requests from 2015 onwards”.
Àngel Jiménez is another affected by the scam who has received the request from the Tax Agency. He entrusted 40 million pesetas in the eighties “because the director of the bank recommended it to me, even he had invested in it”. “They offered returns of 7 and 8% and at the branch it was half that”. He collected punctually “without any problem” from a company that did not cause him any mistrust. Until the intervention. This week he responded to the request of the tax authorities with the document from the commercial court which reflects the debt he had recognized and a copy of the contract he signed with Fórum Filatélico. It has nothing else. “The Treasury should have all the information because it was a regulated procedure and, in addition, we were audited”, he regrets.
A spokesman for the Tax Agency explains that the requests that are being received by scammers by the Philatelic Forum are common when a patrimonial loss is reported. Officials reviewing the statements have doubts and request more information. In any case, the tax administration assures that it will understand the cases of victims of fraud and that it will be sensitive.
That is why the AEAT says it is already “studying how to request the necessary information from third parties”. An option could be the bank. “We will look for the information wherever it is”, says Treasury.
Although some creditors of Fórum Filatélico have already seen how the Tax Agency has closed the procedure, others affected could face a provisional liquidation, before which there would be appropriate resources. They hope not to have to go to court.
“They haven’t given us anything,” complains Jiménez. “Even if the Treasury now gives us back a part, it is not comparable to what we have lost”, he remarks. “Not with what we have suffered these years”, he adds.
