Judgment of the National Court on deadline for issuing invoices and the consequences of failure

The Spanish National Court, on December 10, 2014, decided the appeal 216/2013 against the appellant, a private individual who sold to a real estate company lands that were assigned to the appellant by a compensation board.

Initially, by mistake, the transaction carried out by the appellant and the real estate company, was subject to Transfer Tax instead of VAT. Therefore, subsequently, the Spanish Tax Authorities requested the appellant to pay the corresponding VAT.

Then, the appellant, due to the initial mistake of not being considered as a taxable person for VAT, was unable to issue the invoice within the legal deadline of one year since the date of accrual, so the client (real estate company) refused to pay said VAT, and the appellant must assume the payment of the VAT with no option to be recovered.

Moreover, the Court expressly mentions the inability to issue a rectifying invoice due to the fact that the appellant never issued an original invoice within one year from the date of accrual.

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