Inheritance tax advice for residents

The fact is, that in Murcia, residents are now treated as non residents when it comes to IHT, as there are no regional allowances except for class I, which does not apply to the majority.This is surely a great injustice , while other regions have very  good allowances.

who wants to take such drastic action as investing in UK companies, or any other of the options I mentioned previously.

The only solution is a generous  standard state allowance, and take away the power of the regional governments to determine their own allowances-it is too important a tax .

The whole question of discrimination in IHT is awaiting a hearing before the ECJ as a result of my complaint to Brussels - Case No: C127/12. It is probably better to do nothiing until the decision of the Court (and its repercussions) are known.

I heard that it's about discrimination of non residents-does it include anything about the unfairness of regional allowances?

Spain apparently ignores rulings from the EU anyway, so if anything does happen we'll be kicking up daisies by then, probably!

It is about the unfairness of regional allowances.  It had its preliminary hearing in January this year.  Having failed to comply with the inital ruling of the Commission, Spain will probably get its backside kicked on this one.

You can find the case by searching curia.europa.eu

Fingers crossed then.....

Case Reference - C127/12 Commission v. Kingdom of Spain.

Fingers crossed then.....

For what ?  

That they change the Spanish system to the same as the country we come from ?  UK, Ireland, USA, Germany, France ……    Timbuktu, Cloud Cuckoo Land !

However, as we are in Spain, one might expect that Spain will do it the way Spain wants !   Oh, that’s what they do now !

No-that  the IHT is fair and consistent with regard to regional  allowances, or hopefully, that the state takes over with a different way of handling it. The  unfair situation at present cannot go on  whereby how much IHT you pay(or not) is literally a post code lottery, and a resident of eg Murcia is treated like a non resident becauses there is no regional allowance.

Cup of Tea time again, to fortify me for round 2!

If nobody does anything about it, Spain will do what it wants!  I have managed to get them to do something about the resident fiscal representative, CGT, and expenses on letting, some of which you may have benefitted from.

Spain will do what it wants

I may not like it,  but that sounds reasonable to me as I live in Spain.   Of course if I do not like the way it is, I am free to leave.

Spain is a member of the EU and is obliged to treat all EU citizens equally, and to abide by EU rulings.

I live in Madrid where IHT - at the moment - is virtually zero (Gracias Esperanza!), but in my retirement I would like to spend more time in Cádiz. But the IHT in Andalucía can be as high as 34% so my only option is to spend most of the year in Madrid. This means that Andalucía, with the highest unemployment levels in Spain, has a tax regime that is a disincentive for people who would live, work and spend money there. Do they realize that? 

They might not realise it, but Brussels does.  This is about to change.

Spain is a member of the EU and is obliged to treat all EU citizens equally.

Norm:   As IHT is administered by the Regions, does that mean that within the region  they must be treated the same, whilst each Region can be different from the rest, as is the case within the EU where each country has it’s own rules. ?

I would want that to mean that every region of Spain has the same allowances, not the postcode lottery we have at the moment;That's why it should be a decent state allowance.I should imagine anyone thinking of moving to Murcia has had to rethink their plans.I thought Spain was supposed to be encouraging investment?

As I understand it, the Commission is looking to see uniform IHT taxation throughout Spain.  Look for yourselves at the reference I gave - curia.europa.es  Case C127/12.

the Commission is looking to see uniform IHT taxation throughout Spain

Maybe if they do, they will choose the Murcia situation and apply it fairly to the whole of Spain.

Why does everyone talk about Spain as if it is unique? I know that the different regions in Belgium, for example, have different inheritance tax rates for Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia as does Switzerland (OK. not EU but EEA)

On other posts, people complain about the tax on lottery winnings in Spain saying things like "no-one else in Europe taxes lottery winnings" forgetting about Portugal, Belgium and Switzerland.

There's also those complaining about taxes on taxes in Spain on things like fuel which adds the tax then puts VAT on the tax forgetting that UK also does that with petrol.

And, of course, the regions in UK (we call them England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) could have different rules but opt to have the same levels for IHT (at the moment). 

Then there's the USA which has 50 different levels of taxes on inheritance, lotteries and even sales taxes.

So Spain is not unique. It is a "bugger's muddle" as my Gran used to say but not unique.