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DEFERMENT OF SOCIAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTIONS.

Its allowed the request from May 1 to May 10, the 6-month moratorium, without interest, on the payment of the social security contributions corresponding to the month of April. 

In the same way it can be filed the request from June 1 to June 10, the 6-month moratorium, without interest, on the payment of their social security contributions corresponding to the month of May.

In case of longer periods of deferment it is possible to start the ordinary procedures but it will not be necessary the provision of guarantees to ensure compliance with the deferral  when the total of the deferrable debt is equal to or less than 150,000 euros or when, the deferrable debt being less than 250,000 euros, it is agreed that at least one third of the latter be paid within ten days of notification of the concession and the rest within the following two years.

ISOLATION WORK LEAVE.

 Royal Decree-Law 6/2020, of March 10 (BOE 03/11/2020) had established that periods of isolation or contagion of workers as a consequence of COVID-19 virus infection may affect the determination of the situation assimilated to a work accident for the purposes of the economic benefit for temporary disability of the Social Security system. Recently released Royal Decree-Law makes it clear, as it was reasonable to expect, isolation will only be recognized in cases of medical leave.

REMOTE WORK.

The remote work alternative must be a priority over the temporary cessation or reduction of any employment contract. In companies where this modality is not foreseen, the obligation of evaluating labor risks will be considered fulfilled through the self-evaluation by the own worker.

 RIGHTS OF 'SCHEDULE ADAPTION' AND 'WORKING HOURS REDUCTION'.

Those employees who demonstrate care duties with respect to their spouses or common-law partners, as well as with respect to relatives by blood up to the second degree, will have the right to adapt their working day or to reduce it.

 It will be understood that exceptional circumstances occur when the presence of the worker is necessary for the care of any of the persons indicated in the previous section who, due to age, illness or disability, need personal and direct care as a direct consequence of COVID-19.

 Any decisions taken by Government Authorities related to COVID-19 that imply the closure of educational centers or of any other nature that would make it necessary to take care of the person in need of help will also be considered exceptional circumstances. 

 This is an individual right of each of the parents or caregivers, based on the assumption of co-responsible distribution of the care obligations and the avoidance of the perpetuation of roles, and must be justified, reasonable and proportionate in relation to the situation of the company.

 The right of adapting the work schedule may be referred to the distribution of the work hours or any other aspect of working conditions, the alteration or adjustment of which would allow the worker to provide the attention and care that is the object of this article. It may consist of:

•             Shift change.

•             Alteration of hours or flexible hours.

•             Split or continuous day.

•             Change of work center.

•             Change of functions.

•             Change in the way of work provision, including remote work provision, or any other change in conditions that may be available in the company or that could be implemented in a reasonable and proportionate manner, taking into account the temporary and exceptional nature of these measures.

This special workday reduction must be communicated to the company with 24 hours in advance, and it may reach one hundred percent of the day if necessary.

 In the event the worker were already enjoying an adaptation of their working day for reasons of conciliation, or reduction of working hours for child or family care, or any of the conciliation rights provided in labor law, they may temporarily renounce to it or they will have the right to change the terms of their enjoyment whenever the exceptional circumstances indicated above.

PROCEDURE TO APPLY THE GENERAL REDUCTION OF WORKING HOURS OR THE SUSPENSION OF EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS. 

Before applying this procedure, it would be convenient to analyze the following possibility: considering the period of health emergency as a vacation. For this, the number of vacation days that the worker has earned until March 13, 2020 should be calculated, in order to be attribute them to the period of health emergency. In the event that the alarm status is extended and the accrued vacation days are exhausted, it may be possible to resort to days on account of future vacations or to proceed to the procedure of suspension of employment contracts.

 The procedure will begin at the request of the company to be attached of a report justifying the loss of activity as a consequence of COVID-19, as well as, where appropriate, of the corresponding supporting documentation. The company must communicate its request to the workers and transfer the previous report and supporting documentation, if there is representation of workers.

SOCIAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTION BENEFITS.  

In case of approval of a file of general reduction in working hours or suspension of employment contracts, the company will be exempt from the payment of 75% of the business contribution to Social Security, said exemption reaching 100% of the quota in the case of companies with less than 50 workers, as long as the company is committed to maintaining employment.

The exemption from quotas will be applied by the General Treasury of Social Security at the request of the employer, after communicating the identification of the workers and the period of suspension or reduction of working hours. For the purposes of controlling the exoneration of quotas, it will be sufficient to verify that the Public State Employment Service proceeds to the recognition of the corresponding unemployment benefit for the period in question, they have access to the contributory unemployment benefit, even if they do not have the period of contribution necessary to have access to it and, additionally, that the period of the suspension of the contract or the reduction of the working day during which they are receiving said benefit is not counted for the purposes of consuming the legally established maximum periods of collection. The extraordinary measures in the labor field provided for in this Royal Decree-Law will be subject to the company's commitment to maintain employment for a period of six months from the date of resumption of activity.

SAFEGUARD OF EMPLOYMENT.

The extraordinary measures in the labor sphere provided by this Royal Decree Law will be subject to the company's commitment to maintain employment for a period of six months from the date of resumption of activity.

Corporate Tax (CIT). Terms of payment for 2020.

According to the Royal Decree Law 19/2020 of tax and commercial measuresIt,  the deadline for filing the statement form continues to be the same as always, although the Annual Accounts have not been approved previously, by virtue of the special measures established by Royal Decree Law 8/2020, by which the deadlines were suspended to formulate and approve annual accounts. Therefore, it is confirmed that the 2019 Corporate Tax filing period will be the usual from July 1st to July 25th, more precisely until Monday, July 27, as July 25th this year is a Saturday.

If the Annual Accounts have not been approved, the accounting data so far will be used for the purposes of calculating and filing the Corporation Tax.

If the data included on the Annual Accounts approved after filing the Corporation Tax form were different, a second statement form shall be filed with the following deadline: November 30th, 2020.

In the event it was favorable to the Spanish Treasury, it will be considered a complementary statement. If it were with income, it will merit late interest from July 27th, 2020, but without late filing surcharges.

In the event it was favorable to the taxpayer, the usual procedure will not have to be followed to rectify the self-assessment, notwithstanding the powers of the Administration to verify the first and the new self-assessments.

Neither will the limitations on the rectifications of the tax options be applied (for example, the use of negative tax bases), nor will interest be charged on late payment.

The term of 6 months from which late interest is accrued, if the amount that is returned by the submission of the self-assessment has not been effective, will be counted from November 30th, 2020. Therefore, in the event that an amount to be returned from this second self-assessment, the accrual of default interest will begin on June 1st, 2021.

TAX DEFERRAL FOR MICRO-ENTERPRISES.

Extension of the term for the presentation and entry of the declarations and self-assessments.

In the scope of powers of the Spanish Tax Administration, the deadlines for submission and entry of tax declarations and self-assessments of taxpayers with a volume of operations not exceeding 600,000 euros in 2019 whose due date occurs from the entry in force of this Royal Decree-Law, on April 15, 2020, and until May 20, 2020 will be extended until this date. In this case, if the chosen form of payment is domiciliation, the deadline for submitting self-assessments will be extended until May 15, 2020.

The provisions of this article will not apply to tax groups that apply the special tax consolidation regime regulated in Chapter VI of Title VII of Law 27/2014, of November 27, on Corporation Tax, regardless of their net amount of the turnover, nor to the groups of entities that are taxed in the special regime of groups of entities of the Value Added Tax regulated in chapter IX of title IX of Law 37/1992, of December 28, of Value Added Tax, regardless of its volume of operations.

All tax declarations-settlements and self-assessments with a deadline between March 13th and May 30th of 2020 are postponed, provided the postponement does not exceed the amount of 30.000 €.

For the purposes of determining the aforementioned amount of debt, the following concepts will be accumulated:

•        The debts declared in the request itself,

•        Any other debts of the same debtor for which a deferment or installment had been requested but not yet settled, and

•        The amount of pending maturities of the debt that was either deferred or divided on installments, unless they were duly guaranteed.

In addition to the taxes that may ordinarily be deferred, some settlements may be deferred that would normally be outside this possibility, specifically the following:

•        Those corresponding to tax obligations that must be fulfilled by the withholding agent or the person required to make payments on account (for instance, withholding of personal income tax).

•        Those derived from taxes that must be legally passed on (for example, VAT).

•        Those corresponding to tax obligations that the obligor must make in installments of Corporation Tax.

In order for the postponement to be granted, the volume of operations of the debtor must not have exceeded the amount of 6,010,121.04 in 2019 (SMEs).

The conditions of the postponement will be the following:

a) The postponement will be granted for a term of six months.

b) No default interests will be accrued during the first four months of the deferment.

TAX DEFERRAL FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES. 

The recent Royal Decree-Law 7/2020, of March 13, approved the possibility of deferring tax debts of less than 30,000, - €, subject to self-assessment (withholding of personal income tax, VAT, payments on account of Corporation Tax). The maximum deferment term is 6 months and without interest payment for the first three months.

Let us remind you this type of deferrals can only be accepted by companies that have invoiced less than € 6,010,121.04 in 2019 (SMEs).

LOANS WITH THE GUARANTEE OF THE "INSTITUO DE CRÉDITO OFICIAL - ICO".

There have been approved of guarantee lines on behalf of the State for companies and self-employed of up to 100,000 million Euros, covering both renewal of loans and new financing by credit institutions, credit financial institutions, electronic money entities and payment entities, in order to meet their needs arising, among others, from management of invoices, need for currency or other liquidity needs, including those arising from maturities of financial or tax obligations.

FORMULATION OF ANNUAL ACCOUNTS CLOSED ON 31/12/2019.

The date from which the term for preparing Annual Accounts is counted becomes June 1st 2020 (previously it was from the end of the Alarm State). Therefore, the maximum term for preparing an entity's Annual Accounts (3 months) will be August 31st 2020, assuming its tax year ended on December 31st 2019.

The approval period of Annual Accounts becomes 2 months, from the end of the term to formulate them (previously it was 3 months), so exhausting the maturities, entities with tax year coinciding with the calendar year could approve their annual accounts on October 31st.

Therefore, in the previous case, and exhausting the terms, the last day to deposit the Annual Accounts in the Mercantile Registry will be November 30th, 2020.

SUSPENSION OF PERIODS OF LIMITATION AND EXPIRATION.

Under Royal Decree 463/2020, the periods of limitation and expiration for any actions and rights will be suspended for as long as the Alarm State is in force, including any extensions of the aforementioned state to be adopted.

Terms and deadlines for procedures of public entities will be suspended as well.