# Report on "too long outside of spain" violation during residence permit renewal.



## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

*Report on "too long outside of spain" violation during residence permit renewal.*

I am posting this here for the benefit of anyone in the future who might be called upon to deal with a similar problem, and / or for any who aren't aware that such a regulation exists to be violated. I didn't.

I am a US citizen living in Spain currently 4 years on a non-lucrative residence permit. Previous to this I was resident 3 years in Germany.

When renewing a Spanish residence permit, you are required to submit a copy of every page of your passport. I had always wondered what is the reason for this, for living in Germany the passport was never scrutinised during a permit renewal. I am now aware of the following, however: in Spain, you cannot be outside of the country for more than 180 days in any one-year period without your resident status being cancelled. The actual verbiage used in the letter they sent me was "mas de seis meses en un periodo de un año." I had not known that this was a rule as it is doubtlessly published only in the bowels of some massive legalese document. The submission of a copy of every page of your passport is the manner in which they apparently police this.

I am currently involved in my second renewal of residence permit, the terrifying circumstances of which can be found on another thread on this forum. I submitted all of my papers on 10 April in Barcelona and commenced to wait. I am a resident in good standing, and had no reason to fear that my application would be refused. On 12 May, a letter arrived. The letter stated that scrutiny of the entry/exit stamps in my passport seems to indicate that I have been outside of Spain for more than the allowed six months in any year period. As this constitutes a violation of the rules, it thus nullifies my resident status and therefore makes me ineligible for a renewal of my permit.

The letter contained a little table / graph which reflected all of the entry / exit stamps in my passport over the past three years, the dates of entry and exit indicated there.

Naturally I was blown away by this and was sent into a very unpleasant spiral of stress and panic. Not least because the accusation was patently false. I'd not spent that amount of time outside of Spain, not even in all of the previous three years put together. The letter invited me to appear, without appointment necessary, at the extranjeria and present documents to prove "non-absence" from Spain if I so wished to do. I was allowed ten business days from the date I received the letter to show up and submit my defence. Oddly, the letter was dated 19 April, just nine days after I'd submitted my documents, but did not arrive to my house until 12 May. It was sent registered and signature-required, so I assume that is how they start the clock on the 10 days after you receive the letter.

The key is the following, and it is the reason I am posting this story for the edification of others. With a valid resident card for an EU country, my passport is very routinely NOT STAMPED when passing through passport control at the airport either entering or exiting. I live on a non-lucrative permit in Spain and so am not allowed to work or generate income here. Therefore, I travel away for my work. I do travel somewhat frequently, but not so much as has me away any six months per year. What happened was, the irregularity with which my passport is stamped at immigration made it appear, to one scrutinising the dates on the stamps, as though I'd been away for great blocks of time. One particular gap in stamps had it appear that I was away for ten straight months.

When entering or exiting the EU at Spanish airports, Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga in my experience, my passport is almost always stamped, irrespective of the resident's card I hand them. However, I often fly with airlines and on tickets which connect at airports outside of Spain before leaving the EU. For instance often the cheapest or most convenient flight connects at Paris, before flying on to my destination outside of the EU. Thus, I go through passport control at Paris. In Paris, my passport is almost universally never stamped. This has been my experience for all of the 7 years I've lived in europe with residence permit, including the 3 years resident in Germany. The French simply look at my passport and resident card, hand it back and wave me through. The same for Zurich. The same for Amsterdam.

So over the years the number of flights I've taken which don't exit the EU from Spain have caused all of these very odd-seeming gaps of time in my passport stamps. Sometimes there would be a string of two or three entry stamps but with no corresponding exits between them. It all looked, to the poor fool whose job it is to scrutinise the passport stamps, very irregular. 

So I set about gathering the evidence which I hoped would be sufficient to illustrate what had happened. First, I wrote a document in spanish explaining essentially what I have explained above. That in places like Swiss, France, etc., my passport is never stamped when they see a resident's card. Next, I combed back through three years' worth of email records and found every flight booking receipt and itinerary for every trip I've taken since 2015. These showed dates / cities through which I entered or exited the EU and showed how I exited at airport A on XXX date and my passport was stamped, but entered at airport B on XXX date and my passport was not stamped. It was of course all very confusing to understand (there were 11 flight itineraries in all, across 4 or 5 different airlines), so I collated all of the information into an easier to read single-page document which simply states the date I exited the EU, the city, whether my passport was stamped, and the date and city where I re-entered, and whether my passport was stamped, and then listed the total number of days absent on that trip. At the bottom of this I listed the total number of days absent from the EU over last 3 years (112 days in my case).

Finally, I delved into the last 3 years of bank statements and, for each disputed period in which I was accused of being absent, I provided bank statements which showed very plainly cash withdrawals at ATMs in Spain, which I only could have made if I was present physically.

In all, it was something like 90 pages of documents I was handing in, in hopes to prove my 'innocence.' However I was not terribly confident, for none of them were 'official' documents in any sense. Flight booking receipts and itineraries printed off old emails in english are far from official here. And all of my bank / money stuff still remains in US banks. If I cannot earn money in spain neither will I keep my money here. But bank statements from a US bank downloaded and printed off the internet are far from solid official documents in Spain. However, they have always been good enough to prove financial solvency and renew my residence permit, so hopefully they would be enough now.

I will continue story in another post, to avoid going over maximum word count.


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## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

On 23 May I carried my papers, heart in throat, to the extranjeria. I had no appointment but the gate-keepers looked at the letter and gave me a number. I commenced to wait several hours and finally was the last person served. I speak usually adequate spanish but in circumstances like this my nerves are such that my ability to speak intelligibly goes entirely to pieces. I handed the man the letter I'd received and he read it and said "this comes from another office, I can't do anything except send your documents over. We can't give you any answer on this today." I'd of course not expected to be given an answer on the spot. 

I showed the man my pile of documents. I was literally quaking in fear and panic and trying very slowly to make myself understood in Spanish. I gave him the statement I'd written in Spanish to read, so that I wouldn't have to talk. He said sure, it all sounds reasonable. To him, it sounds reasonable. I showed him the pile of past flight itineraries. I showed him the pile of bank statements which showed ATM withdrawals in Barcelona and elsewhere in Spain during the disputed periods. He said sure, if it was up to him, he'd accept this as adequate. But it's not up to him, he reminded me. He then went to work on his computer and began to scan the mound of papers one by one.

As he was scanning though he seemed to change his mind. He began to say things like "well, I don't know, you could have just given your bank card to a friend and had them take money out while you were gone so it would look like you were here..." I asked him if he was joking. He only said it was possible, maybe they would see it that way, he's not accusing me of anything... Nevertheless I was not given any comfort by these remarks. Next he asked me if I'd been sick at all during the periods in question. I said no, I'm really never sick. He said "well, it would really have been better for you if you'd been sick all of the time. Because then you'd have official doctor records to show you were here in Spain, that's much stronger proof." I said I don't feel the need to apologise for being in good health. He shrugged and continued to scan the papers. The tone of the meeting had turned startlingly elegiac. The rest of the building was empty, we were the only two in the room.

In the end he gave me all of my papers back. He printed off a form which confirmed that he'd sent a PDF of the scanned documents to whatever office handles this. I then asked him, in the event that I am found unfavourably, what then? How much time do I have to dissolve my life of four years and get out of the country? He said he didn't really know (not that it's his job or anything), but he thought the figure might be two weeks. My jaw dropped at hearing this. Two weeks to dismantle an entire life and leave. I said he must be joking. He shrugged and said nothing. Anyway that was essentially the end of it. I thanked him and signed the cross and got up and left. The stress and panic of this situation was so overwhelming that I fell down two different times in the street, walking, before I reached home. I was walking and sudden severe dizziness turned the world over sideways and I staggered and fell on hands and knees. People rushed over to help, etc. Very embarrassing.

On 12 June, I received a letter, once again registered and signature-required. In the end they accepted my defence and dropped the case for the nullifying of my resident status for being outside Spain more than 6 months in a year period. I was acquitted. The letter was terrifying to read and horribly abstruse, confusing, and unclear, and the exoneration part of it was buried way down in the 3rd paragraph near the bottom. It was like a very long, horrifying drum-roll of a letter while you are waiting to hear if you are to be executed or not. But in the end, I was not.

The month during this period, between receiving notice of the problem on 12 May and being acquitted on 12 June, was among the worst periods I've ever experienced in my life. The stress of it all caused me absolute inability either to sleep or to eat, nor to focus on anything else in my life. I lost probably around 7 kilos in weight, and at times my hands would shake so badly that I could not even write with a pencil. During that time I had two very close old friends, a married couple, come to visit me from the USA. The visit had been planned for over one year, and it was their first time ever being in Europe. Instead of an enjoyable visit with them I was silent and panicked and worried and angry, I could not focus on anything nor enjoy anything and though they were sympathetic, the whole visit was most definitely ruined by this circumstance. I do not wish this sort of stress and fear onto even my worst enemy.

In any case, for anyone who has read this far, I advise being aware of the potential to be popped for this if you travel frequently outside of the EU. I would never have thought that some Spaniard at a desk somewhere is busy teasing out the dates from the smeared, overlapped, faded, often-illegible stamps in my passport trying to see how long I've been away from the country. But apparently just such a person exists. So I advise any who would travel out of the EU and wish to maintain / renew their residency, INSIST that your passport be stamped EVERY time you enter or exit the EU. As said, agents at passport control in places like Paris and Zurich and Amsterdam (in my experience, surely there are others) don't stamp a passport if they see a valid resident's card accompanying it. To avoid problematic holes in your passport stamps which may later subject you to the nullifying of your resident status, I advise requesting / demanding that they stamp your passport every time you enter or exit. For myself, I fully intend to "lose" my passport just before my next renewal (if there is one) and present them with a fresh brand new passport entirely unstamped. I do not want to take any chances with them mis-reading it again.

That is the end of that part of my story. I hope it may help someone down the line. In spite of being cleared of 'wrongdoing' regards absence from Spain however, my permit renewal has recently been refused anyway, for reasons I'm not yet, as of this writing, aware. I am documenting the details of that in another thread on this same forum. It has been really one very unlucky renewal process for me this time around. I only hope my travails can help someone else avoid same in the future. I am sorry to write so long, but when I myself am searching for info or others' experiences I am always pleased to have as much detail as possible.


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## uk03878 (Jul 4, 2018)

Did they swipe the passports as the biometric chip will update a register


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## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

Mostly (I do watch for this as I'm always curious) they wouldn't scan them either. It was a simple check of the passport photo against my actual face, and they check the resident's card, and then the whole thing is handed back to me and they wave me through. 

However, as I understand it the passport scans at immigration aren't a universally linked-up system that all countries easily access together. It updates a register (again, I'm not expert but this is what I've read) in that country itself, France for instance, but it's not a register that say immigration bureaucrats in Spain can access easily and check. If it were all in the computers I'd think they wouldn't need to have copies of your passport pages to tell if you'd violated the 6 months rule. 

As I understand, it takes some significant thing to get the entry / exit records shared between countries. If you're arrested and accused of terrorist activity or something, obviously then they'll check all of that on all computer records across europe. But just a regular, non-criminal guy trying to renew his residence permit on schedule, I don't think it's all one linked system they can easily pull up.


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## Phil Squares (Jan 13, 2017)

While I can understand your anxiety, for someone who has been living outside your home country for a number of years, you should recognize the 180 day limit. It has to do with the concept of being tax resident somewhere. In this case, legally speaking you were not a tax resident of Spain for the year in question. 

One suggestion would be if you are a member of any frequent flyer programs you could always use the records from those programs to show you entered the EU in a country other than Spain and then travelled to Spain where you would not have to interface with immigration in Spain. 

If you wanted to travel to Madrid, I could recommend an immigration attorney we used for my wife who is a US citizen.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Phil Squares said:


> While I can understand your anxiety, for someone who has been living outside your home country for a number of years, you should recognize the 180 day limit. It has to do with the concept of being tax resident somewhere. In this case, legally speaking you were not a tax resident of Spain for the year in question.
> 
> One suggestion would be if you are a member of any frequent flyer programs you could always use the records from those programs to show you entered the EU in a country other than Spain and then travelled to Spain where you would not have to interface with immigration in Spain.
> 
> If you wanted to travel to Madrid, I could recommend an immigration attorney we used for my wife who is a US citizen.


It has been sorted out. They accepted his proof & he was in country for more than half the year.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

This has got me thinking, & reminded me of the many times that we have posted



> It's up to you to prove that you weren't in Spain, rather than up to the authorities to prove that you were


when replying to EU citizens who ask ''How can they know if I'm here or not?''

It does go to show that the authorities will check things out if they choose to.


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## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

Phil Squares said:


> While I can understand your anxiety, for someone who has been living outside your home country for a number of years, you should recognize the 180 day limit. It has to do with the concept of being tax resident somewhere. In this case, legally speaking you were not a tax resident of Spain for the year in question.
> 
> One suggestion would be if you are a member of any frequent flyer programs you could always use the records from those programs to show you entered the EU in a country other than Spain and then travelled to Spain where you would not have to interface with immigration in Spain.
> 
> If you wanted to travel to Madrid, I could recommend an immigration attorney we used for my wife who is a US citizen.


Yes as another poster remarked, this has all been sorted, they did accept the documents I gave them as adequate proof that I was not absent. I only wanted to post the story for the benefit of someone else who might endure it in the future and come here searching for advice or past experience.

However I am not certain it has to do with taxes. I live in Spain on a non-lucrative residence permit, and I cannot generate income in Spain. As I earn no income here, neither am I asked to pay any taxes here. Also I would imagine such a rule to be fairly standard across all the EU but it is not. I lived three years in Germany before Spain, and even with a freelancer's residence permit (I could earn money there but did not), submitting the pages of one's passport was not part of the renewal process in Germany. As I understood, Germany did not care one whit how long you were in or outside of the country.

And to the poster above who said that apparently they DO check it, that's exactly why I'm sharing the story. I was astonished that someone actually scrutinises the stamps in my passport for they are copious and in many places fairly illegible for being stacked atop one another, smudged, smeared, lain on with too-liitle ink, etc. To think there's some functionary at a desk somewhere with doubtlessly a magnifying glass or microscope, teasing the true story out of the jumble of one's passport stamps and issuing edict that so-and-so spent too long outside of Spain last year, it's amazing to me.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

billbaytoven said:


> However I am not certain it has to do with taxes. I live in Spain on a non-lucrative residence permit, and I cannot generate income in Spain. As I earn no income here, neither am I asked to pay any taxes here.


Actually, as a resident in Spain, you are required to declare all your world wide income, not just that which is generated in Spain.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

billbaytoven said:


> And to the poster above who said that apparently they DO check it, that's exactly why I'm sharing the story. I was astonished that someone actually scrutinises the stamps in my passport for they are copious and in many places fairly illegible for being stacked atop one another, smudged, smeared, lain on with too-liitle ink, etc. To think there's some functionary at a desk somewhere with doubtlessly a magnifying glass or microscope, teasing the true story out of the jumble of one's passport stamps and issuing edict that so-and-so spent too long outside of Spain last year, it's amazing to me.


But that's the whole reason that passports are stamped, so that your movements are recorded and if necessary can be tracked ie your passport stamps will be looked at by someone. Otherwise they would serve no purpose more than decoration!


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> Actually, as a resident in Spain, you are required to declare all your world wide income, not just that which is generated in Spain.


 Yes, OP can look here section 5
Do you need to submit a Spanish tax return?


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## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

Pesky Wesky said:


> But that's the whole reason that passports are stamped, so that your movements are recorded and if necessary can be tracked ie your passport stamps will be looked at by someone. Otherwise they would serve no purpose more than decoration!


I agree, but in that case you'd think they'd be stamped universally by the people whose job is to stamp them. The whole fiasco was due to some of the people in various posts of immigration control NOT stamping my passport when they should have. I didn't think to demand that they stamp me (though I will from now on), because it's not my place to tell them how to do their job. I was only too happy to have fewer stamps in the book because when the US passport runs out of room for stamps, you have to pay for a whole new passport.

As for all the tax stuff above, I'm going to go ahead and let them ferret me out and catch me on that one. One thing at a time here, I've got my hands full with other more pressing spanish bureaucratic nightmare matters. I earn far less than the cut-off amounts referenced on the above link anyway.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

billbaytoven said:


> I agree, but in that case you'd think they'd be stamped universally by the people whose job is to stamp them. The whole fiasco was due to some of the people in various posts of immigration control NOT stamping my passport when they should have. I didn't think to demand that they stamp me (though I will from now on), because it's not my place to tell them how to do their job. I was only too happy to have fewer stamps in the book because when the US passport runs out of room for stamps, you have to pay for a whole new passport.
> 
> Yes, I don't know why they don't stamp everyone's passport, but they don't in many countries as you will now know. However you can ask (rather than demand) the official to stamp the passport if you need it and as you travel a lot it seems you'll need to.
> 
> ...


Well, you'll have to prove that you need to make a declaration elsewhere rather than prove you don't need to make one in Spain so make sure you start collecting evidence now to get that covered.
And also perhaps make sure you don't have any other gaps in your knowledge of what your rights and duties are on your visa...


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## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Well, you'll have to prove that you need to make a declaration elsewhere rather than prove you don't need to make one in Spain so make sure you start collecting evidence now to get that covered.
> And also perhaps make sure you don't have any other gaps in your knowledge of what your rights and duties are on your visa...


Thanks, but my tax situation is outside of the relevance of this thread. I posted my story to hopefully benefit someone in the future who may go through same, as I could not find any information about it when it happened to me. I appreciate all of the concern for where and how I pay taxes but fortunately my tax situation is one of the few things which is presently giving me zero trouble.

This thread was meant as an illustration for all non-EU, non-British citizens living as permitted residents in Spain to make sure their passports are stamped in / out each time they enter / exit the Schengen area, to avoid the bedlam which might result when they attempt to renew their resident permit.


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## skip o (Aug 1, 2011)

billbaytoven, was this renewal after living in Spain for two years or five years or what? I did a renewal after 2 years and I didn't need to copy every page of my passport.


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## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

skip o said:


> billbaytoven, was this renewal after living in Spain for two years or five years or what? I did a renewal after 2 years and I didn't need to copy every page of my passport.


This was / is (I'm still fighting with it - please see other recent thread titled 'residence permit renewal refused') my second renewal of permiso de residencia no lucrativo. My last renewal was two years ago. The next renewal I do would be for the 5-year larga duracion permit, if they let me make it that far.

I'm surprised you didn't have to provide the copies of every page of passport. I've never had any permiso besides this non-lucrative one though, so perhaps the other ones have different can't-be-out-of-Spain-more-than-X-days rules.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

I thought that it applied to ALL long term visas / permits. 

But someone posted the other day that it doesn't apply to the so-called 'Golden Visa' - the investment visa


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## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

xabiachica said:


> I thought that it applied to ALL long term visas / permits.
> 
> But someone poted the other day that it doesn't apply to the so-called 'Golden Visa' - the investment visa


That would make sense. If I was dropping a half million or whatever it is for resident status I wouldn't want them dictating how long I have to stay where either.


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## skip o (Aug 1, 2011)

I had a gestor take help with my renewal (too many problems trying to do things on my own), so maybe the passport was copied and I don't remember.


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## 95995 (May 16, 2010)

Of course, the next hurdle might just be that the OP hasn't made tax declarations in Spain.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

EverHopeful said:


> Of course, the next hurdle might just be that the OP hasn't made tax declarations in Spain.


He hasn't. He posted as much.


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## 95995 (May 16, 2010)

xabiachica said:


> He hasn't. He posted as much.


That's my point.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

To be fair I wouldn't want to file a tax return that shows I have been receiving an income from working whilst on a non lucrative visa either.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Pazcat said:


> To be fair I wouldn't want to file a tax return that shows I have been receiving an income from working whilst on a non lucrative visa either.


Some consulates issue non-lucrative visas to those working remotely. 

I personally know of two US families who lived in Spain, with non-lucrative visas, each for two years, based upon the remote earnings from companies based in the US. 

They submitted tax returns here, too.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

I think the thing is you have to find out about what you are supposed to do tax and residency wise in this "partnership" before you enter into it. The problem is you don't always know the correct questions to ask because things are done differently from one country to another.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

xabiachica said:


> Some consulates issue non-lucrative visas to those working remotely.
> 
> I personally know of two US families who lived in Spain, with non-lucrative visas, each for two years, based upon the remote earnings from companies based in the US.
> 
> They submitted tax returns here, too.


I know, and as I have said in the past at the end of the day it does not matter what the consulates choose to issue as it will come down to hacienda and what they decide. I don't know the answer but if some US citizens can work on a non luc visa and the rest of the world can't then somebody, somewhere are not following the rules or more likely they don't know them in the first place.
I doubt the actual law differs and when it comes up I have suggested the only real place to find an answer would be from the office that actually processes tax here in Spain, strangely enough nobody has ever came back saying they have the answer.
I would like absolute clarity on it is all.

It's also clear from other posters over the years that people seem to believe or have been told they don't have to submit any earnings in their tax declarations because it was earned outside of Spain, this is not correct either.

Still the fact that someone hasn't submitted a tax return for years and declaring they will have to dig for it on a public forum isn't all that clever. So yeah I would be more worried about that than an insurance issue that is easily fixable.


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## billbaytoven (Jul 14, 2018)

Wow, I really didn't expect this thread to go off in the direction it has.

A little clarity here on my situation. I'm a US citizen living in Spain now 4 years on the non-lucrative residence permit. I've never earned a single centimo in Spain. I don't work here remotely or on a computer. I don't have passive income. I don't have a spouse or children, I don't own a home or a car. I do not have multiple jobs or sources of income. I work in the film-making and gallery art industry and when I and my working partner have a project, I get on a plane and fly to the USA to do the work. I do not prepare the work in Spain, I do not solicit clients in Spain, I do not in any shade violate the non-lucrative aspect of my residence permit here. I earn, and have earned all of the years I've lived in Spain, very little money. I do not earn enough money to qualify to pay income tax in the USA. I have earned in recent years around 6,000 US dollars per year. One recent year I earned nothing, zero, for we did zero work. I have a feeling many remarking in this thread are imagining some person withholding millions in tax revenue from the foreign government off which he is wilfully leeching. If I've owed anything to the nation of Spain based on my worldwide income, we are talking maybe a few hundred or a thousand €. I am about as small a fish as can be imagined. Does this exonerate me from the heinous crime of my oversight? No. But it gives a measure of context to the grandiosity of the wrongdoing I've committed against Spain and apparently against you all here.

I did an enormous amount of reading and searching before I moved here from Germany, where I had lived, legally and with residence permit, for three years. I read everything I could on the non-lucrative visa, and every report I could find of US citizens who had gone through the process and were currently living in Spain and renewing it with success. In not a single report, nor with any with whom I corresponded to ask questions, did I read a single thing about tax obligations to Spain for those US citizens living here on the non-lucrative permit and earning no income in Spain. My personal oversight regarding the obligation to declare income for tax purposes does not come from some wilful malevolence within me to cheat my host country out of its due. 

Futhermore, as said I've lived here four years, which means I've renewed my non-lucrative residence permit once already, two years ago, with zero problems. Upon renewal of my permit I am neither required nor asked to produce tax documents of any kind. The only financial documents required upon renewal of my permit are documents which demonstrate I've the financial means to support myself without requiring to take a Spanish job. I demonstrated this adequately enough to satisfy the relevant authority on my initial application, and I demonstrated it again adequately enough to satisfy the relevant authority on my renewal. Since my last renewal two years ago, neither the documents I utilise to demonstrate this nor my financial situation has changed. 

Due to a weird passport-stamp irregularity the tale of which was the original focus of this sad thread, I had a bit of a snag while attempting to renew my permit again this year. That snag was sorted out and dismissed, as was mentioned in the original post. Currently I've hit another snag and my residence renewal has been refused, a problem with which I've requested help from the readers of this kind forum in another post. As of this writing I have not yet been notified of the reason for the denial. I suspect it has to do with my grade of health insurance coverage, which I now know to be insufficient to match the national health care system's coverage but which I can, if permitted to correct the error, easily upgrade to bring myself into correct standing. However, I now understand thanks to remarks on this thread that it may well be due to my having failed to declare my piteous worldwide income for Spanish tax purposes the last three years. I suppose this is a possibility. I hope it is not the case, for I imagine overturning the decision in appeal would be difficult if that is the true reason for refusal. I would not expect that my willingness to pay whatever is owed would be met with much favour. I will have to decide what to do / how to deal with that if / when it ends up being the case that my renewal was refused for that reason. It begs the question though why they would renew my permit in the past with the income and tax declaration as much in arrears as presently.

I detect a very strange tone of snide bloodthirstiness in many of the remarks on this thread. It was never, and never will be, my intent to weasel out of paying my due in this world. In the hopeful event that I am able to sort out this mess with my residence permit renewal and continue living legally in Spain, I intend to address this tax issue immediately and bring myself into correct and legal alignment with all of the rules of which I am aware. I will be eager to consult with a professional regarding this, if and when the time comes.

However, this current period has been and continues to be a period of extremely difficult emotional stress for me personally, as the question of my allowance to remain in this country, where I have been four years building a life which I enjoy, stands in jeopardy. My health has suffered severely for the stress and anxiety this process has put me through, and the last several days since learning my application has ultimately been refused have been among the worst days I've experienced in my life. 

I now very much regret having started this thread to share my experience, because it has brought to my attention yet another thing to stress over and worry over and which I am, right now, powerless do anything about. I think many of the remarks in this thread have been unnecessarily harsh-toned and pre-suppose that anyone run afoul of the tax requirements of this place cannot have had any reason save dirty dealings and purposeful evasion. The regulations in this country are, I think we can all agree, complex and unclear in the best of cases, poorly documented, and often differ depending on what day of week you go to deal with them, which province you're in, which official you get stood in front of, and what their mood is on that hour of that day. 

I enjoy living in Spain. I do not want to have to leave. I have a life here. I do not have a life in the USA. If forced out of Spain, for whatever reason, it will cause a great deal of trouble and unpleasantness in my life. I am very much hoping that, whatever the reason has caused my permit renewal to be refused, I will be able somehow to correct my situation into alignment with the relevant regulation and continue my life here. I struggle every day to have faith and to believe that there is help out there, that the people in charge are not careless and heartless and evil, and that there is some way to get through this fiasco and out the other side. But it is very difficult in today's world when the knee-jerk reaction, mine at least, is to believe automatically that most people would be more content to step on your face in the gutter than they would to pause and ask if you could use some help standing up. The tone of many of the remarks in this thread have done nothing to aide my ability to have such faith. Perhaps I am too sensitive right now though. Likely so.

I HOPE that I would find sympathy at least, relevant aide at best, from the members of this forum. Yes, I suppose it appears that I may have run afoul of tax-declaration requirements of which I have been for four years, until yesterday when this thread went off the rails, unaware. Does this exonerate me from the grievous wrong I have done? No, I suppose not. Is it grounds for me to be rooted up and thrown out of the country? No, I don't think so. I hope not. Others here may disagree. I suppose that is their right. But I do not want to read their opinion on it at this time. I have enough stress happening to me presently without adding more. The worry and anxiety this entire situation has caused and is causing to me I would not wish upon anyone, anywhere, ever. I have led, and continue to lead, a rather uncommon life which has brought me into the teeth of many tangibly dangerous and potentially catastrophic circumstances. But the hopeless panic which is forced into me as result of these dealings with faceless bureaucracy is truly the worst and most terrifyingly vulnerable feeling I have ever experienced.

So to those who may feel personally wronged by my oversight regarding the minuscule taxes on my minuscule worldwide income, please accept my apology. I am confident your own lives will continue un-impaired by the omission.

I do not want to check this thread again, as it causes me too much worry I don't at all need at this time. I will try to figure out how to disable whatever mechanism sends me an email every time someone posts a new remark here. I will regret having to see it in the main list of threads as I continue to check the other thread I started, where so far I have received a measure of encouragement and help, for which I am immeasurably grateful.

Thank you for reading. Please wish me luck.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

We do have sympathy with the plight you found yourself in with regards to the number of days you were in/out of the country, & the difficulties that caused you.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that as a resident in Spain you are *required * to make a tax declaration of all your worldwide income. Plus a 720 declaration if you have assets worth over 50k outside Spain. 

You might not owe any tax. That would only become clear upon doing the declaration.

But you are still required to do the declarations.

If you do have assets outside Spain, & hacienda discover that you haven't done the 720, the fines are punishing.


I'm not judging you. You might simply have been badly advised. 

We're simply passing on the facts about your legal obligations. 

It's up to you if you choose to ignore them.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Bilbaytoven was extremely upset and agitated with the situation s/he was in regarding residency and was left with a few days to scramble around finding evidence to present to the authorities.
This stressful situation could be repeated with tax issues or maybe other areas that s/he was unaware of.
Alternatively the OP can face the situation and try to fully understand the implications of the visa s/he has and fulfill the conditions of that visa. 
It's not an easy situation, but that's what living in another country implies.


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