TAX return season will start a week late in Spain, on April 7 - but will still conclude on June 30, with all unpaid tax calculated during that time payable by the following day.
Normally, tax returns - known as a Declaración de la Renta and which apply to all fiscal residents in Spain, including the employed, retired, anyone on a pension or State benefits, and non-workers as well as business owners and the self-employed - can be calculated and filed from April 1, but this has been delayed by a week for income earned in the year 2014.
The tax office, known as Hacienda, no longer sends out paperwork in the post, meaning these have to be obtained online via www.agenciatributaria.es, via an accountant, or in person at the tax office.
Also this year, a 'pensions amnesty' has been launched in which anyone in receipt of a retirement pension paid by a country other than Spain, who has never previously included this in his or her annual tax return, must do so for the past four years' worth of earnings from said fund by June 30 at the latest.
If they do so, any taxes on the foreign pension in question which have not been paid will be due by July 1 for the previous four years - from January 2010 to December 31, 2014 - but will not attract interest or late-payment penalties.
Where these have already been charged on the pension in question for this period, they can be claimed back.
Those affected will be expatriates who have retired to Spain, or Spaniards who worked abroad during Franco's time when there was not enough employment to go around all adults of working age.
In most cases, and in particular with expatriates - who tend to use financial assessors or accountants for their tax returns due to lack of knowledge of the system and fear of losing out on a possible rebate through their own mistakes - this will not apply, because pensions from their own countries will almost certainly have been included as this tends to be their only income.
Different rules apply to different countries of origin, and some have a dual tax treaty which ensures both countries do not tax the same income.
For UK pensions, those paid by the public sector or civil service - including to NHS workers, council employees, retired police officers and so on - are not taxable in Spain as a sum is withheld by the issuing authority in Britain, but they must still be included in annual tax returns as they may affect total income thresholds.
Private or non-public-sector company pensions, and State pensions are taxable as no retentions are made in the UK on recipients who are not British tax residents.
However, the lower threshold is €11,200 per year, meaning those whose income is a British State pension only will fall below this figure and they will not have to pay.
Everyone in receipt of a pension from outside Spain will have received a letter from the tax authority, Hacienda, but where they have always given their financial assessor full details of their pensions and other income from their home country, they do not have anything to worry about.
Those whose income sits below €22,000 per year (gross) and comes from one source only - an employee of one firm who has worked for the same company all year and does not earn any other investment interest, rental income from a second property and so on - do not have to file a tax return, but where they do and they are found not to have paid enough tax, they will have to pay.
On the other hand, if they have paid too much tax, they will get a rebate.
If an employee has spent part of the year, even just one week, on the dole, he or she is deemed to have received income from more than one source and will be required to make a declaration.
Most employers, upon request, will increase staff's monthly income tax retentions if the staff member wishes, either as a safeguard against having to pay extra the following year, or to guarantee a rebate, effectively acting as a small savings fund.
Those whose income is less than €22,000 from one sole source, but who have applied deductions for investing in a property,any type of investment plan including a retirement pension, are also obliged to declare their earnings.
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