# Spanish tax??



## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

I'm filling in my UK tax return and need to declare my Spanish income (I worked in Spain for a few months).

The problem is, I have no idea to figure out how much tax I've paid. I have a document which says how much I earned each month (net, I think) but nothing to tell me my total tax paid. 

There is a section called 'Deducciones' with various categories (contingencias comunes etc)...is all this considered tax or not?

My total 'deducciones' only adds up to under 10% of my total earnings.

Any help appreciated.


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## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

If anyone could help at all, I'd be really grateful!


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## brocher (Mar 21, 2011)

Presumably some of the deductions will be socual security not tax. I just ran all the phrases through google translate until I figured out what they all meant. It seemed that it was the social security that covered several items of deductions, tax was only one item.

You should be able to tie in the piece of paper with your pay slips, too.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Clemmie00 said:


> I'm filling in my UK tax return and need to declare my Spanish income (I worked in Spain for a few months).
> 
> The problem is, I have no idea to figure out how much tax I've paid. I have a document which says how much I earned each month (net, I think) but nothing to tell me my total tax paid.
> 
> ...


You should get a "certificado de retenciones". I get them from the companies I work in just before tax declaration time, which I think is around May (???)


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## al_bryant (Aug 16, 2013)

In my experience, I was paying the flat rate 25% expat tax and then I think social security is about 4.9% (capped at about 3600 euros a year or something similar.

Not sure if this will apply to you if you only worked in Spain for a couple of months and weren't a resident?

Al


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

al_bryant said:


> In my experience, I was paying the flat rate 25% expat tax and then I think social security is about 4.9% (capped at about 3600 euros a year or something similar.
> 
> Not sure if this will apply to you if you only worked in Spain for a couple of months and weren't a resident?
> 
> Al


She was working legally and therefore had a residency certificate


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

al_bryant said:


> In my experience, I was paying the flat rate 25% expat tax and then I think social security is about 4.9% (capped at about 3600 euros a year or something similar.
> 
> Not sure if this will apply to you if you only worked in Spain for a couple of months and weren't a resident?
> 
> Al




... confused! 

SS in Spain is a fixed figure each month and is NOT related to how much you earn - how can it be a percentage?

The normal figure is around 260 euros/month (3120 pa) but this depends on age and type of work.


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## al_bryant (Aug 16, 2013)

snikpoh said:


> ... confused!
> 
> SS in Spain is a fixed figure each month and is NOT related to how much you earn - how can it be a percentage?
> 
> The normal figure is around 260 euros/month (3120 pa) but this depends on age and type of work.


This is just the way my company explained it to me. It was a particular percentage of my salary based on the flat rate I had to pay. But then again, the company I worked for weren't very good at explaining much at all...


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

Social security , as an employee, is 4,8% . The employers contribution is 35%.
Social security for self-employed is 29,8% , with a minimum of around 270/month. 


Seguridad Social:Trabajadores

Seguridad Social:Trabajadores

http://www.seg-social.es/Internet_1...0777/Basesytiposdecotiza36537/index.htm#36538


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## brocher (Mar 21, 2011)

al_bryant said:


> This is just the way my company explained it to me. It was a particular percentage of my salary based on the flat rate I had to pay. But then again, the company I worked for weren't very good at explaining much at all...





snikpoh said:


> ... confused!
> 
> SS in Spain is a fixed figure each month and is NOT related to how much you earn - how can it be a percentage?
> 
> The normal figure is around 260 euros/month (3120 pa) but this depends on age and type of work.




Think you are confused there!

The 260€ is for self employed work, it's much less for employees as their employer pays their share, too.

On the payslips I have seen and the year end form, the social security seemed to be divided into a few sections covering different elements - I only remember one off the top of my head, and it was for orphans ( which may be too literal a translation!)


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## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

Thanks for the info. I thought the tax was meant to be around 25%, but I seemed to be paying far less than that. My total deductions were only about 50-60 euros, on a paycheck of 650-700 euros. Does anyone know why that could be?


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## tommy t (Aug 22, 2013)

*tax rate in spain ??*

just reading some things about living in spain and some of this book ( written in 2009) states the tax rate for self employed is as much as 43% this seems really high? also is social security a % of your earnings too, anyone any info on this ??


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## brocher (Mar 21, 2011)

Deduct the personal allowance from your gross salary, then deduct tax percentage from the balance. Hopefully that should work out.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

tommy t said:


> just reading some things about living in spain and some of this book ( written in 2009) states the tax rate for self employed is as much as 43% this seems really high? also is social security a % of your earnings too, anyone any info on this ??


I've merged your question into a current thread with the same question 

here are current tax rates Spanish tax rates and allowances 2013. Tax rates Spain.

they've gone up somewhat since 2009 

if you're self-employed you pay a fixed amount each month for SS/NI, regardless of earnings - I pay over 270€ a month


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## CapnBilly (Jun 7, 2011)

xabiachica said:


> here are current tax rates Spanish tax rates and allowances 2013. Tax rates Spain.
> 
> they've gone up somewhat since 2009


But, just to clarify, the increases over 2009 are only supposed to be temporary. They're supposed to revert back next year (unless they change it :rofl


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## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

brocher said:


> Deduct the personal allowance from your gross salary, then deduct tax percentage from the balance. Hopefully that should work out.


How much is the personal allowance?

I earned just over 3000 euros in total, and paid about 50-60 in 'contributions' each month...does that sound right?


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## brocher (Mar 21, 2011)

You're well under the personal allowance (google to find rates) so there's a fair chance you haven't had any tax deducted. 

It shouldn't be hard to tell what tax you've paid, it will say something like "Income tax deductions" (in Spanish ) if you've paid any. if it doesn't clearly state something like that, then I would say it's safe to assume you haven't paid any.The other deductions will all be parts of your social security deductions, or other contractually agreed deductions.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

brocher said:


> It shouldn't be hard to tell what tax you've paid.


Especially if you have the* certificado de retenciones*!!

If you didn't get it, get in touch with your former employers. It doesn't sound like they're very on the ball so ask for the contact info for their gestores and speak directly to them.
How come you didn't notice before what tax you were paying? Didn't you get a nomina?


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## brocher (Mar 21, 2011)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Especially if you have the* certificado de retenciones*!!
> 
> If you didn't get it, get in touch with your former employers. It doesn't sound like they're very on the ball so ask for the contact info for their gestores and speak directly to them.
> How come you didn't notice before what tax you were paying? Didn't you get a nomina?


Clemmie said earlier she had received a piece of paper so assuming it is the certificate you mention, PW.

I already suggested she just translate the wording of each category and it would then be easy enough to tell what everything is. I have basically no Spanish and I managed to decipher it all, so I'm sure a language teacher can manage!


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## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

I have all my nominas. I just don't understand what counts as tax. There are many, many more categories than in the UK. 

It looks like this:

1. Aportacion del trabajador a las cotizaciones a la Seguridad Social y conceptos de recaudacion conjunta

Contingencias comunes
Desempleo
Formacion Profesional
Horas extraordinarias
Fuerza mayor o estructurales
No estructurales
TOTAL APORTACIONES

2. Impuesto sobre la renta

and then a few other things. 

It looks like 'impuesto sobre la renta' is most likely the 'income tax', the other things falling under 'social security'. This is only around 15 euros per paycheck. 

I don't have a certificado de retenciones. I have other documents, but nothing with the total tax paid.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

CapnBilly said:


> But, just to clarify, the increases over 2009 are only supposed to be temporary. They're supposed to revert back next year (unless they change it :rofl


So was the " 1% for 1 year " German reunification tax , that my brother was still paying until he died 2 years ago !


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

brocher said:


> Clemmie said earlier she had received a piece of paper so assuming it is the certificate you mention, PW.
> 
> I already suggested she just translate the wording of each category and it would then be easy enough to tell what everything is. I have basically no Spanish and I managed to decipher it all, so I'm sure a language teacher can manage!


The paper she received might well have been the* finiquito*, Which is what you should receive when you leave a company. I'm not sure what info there is there, but it probably has her tax contributions on it. 
Anyway, it's easy to find out. It should say at the top of the page!


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## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

Pesky Wesky said:


> The paper she received might well have been the* finiquito*, Which is what you should receive when you leave a company. I'm not sure what info there is there, but it probably has her tax contributions on it.
> Anyway, it's easy to find out. It should say at the top of the page!


The finiquito has no tax info on it unfortunately!


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## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

So it appears that I did indeed only pay about 15 euro a month tax on a monthly income of <700 euros a month....any idea why I paid so little?


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Clemmie00 said:


> So it appears that I did indeed only pay about 15 euro a month tax on a monthly income of <700 euros a month....any idea why I paid so little?


Well, it's about 21%, isn't it?
Why were you paid so little?


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## CapnBilly (Jun 7, 2011)

Clemmie00 said:


> So it appears that I did indeed only pay about 15 euro a month tax on a monthly income of <700 euros a month....any idea why I paid so little?


An income of €700 is about €8400. The personal allowance is €5151, plus you get an earned income allowance. On €8400 that would be €4080, so you shouldn't pay any tax. However, I'm guessing (but I don't know because I haven't worked in Spain) that when they deduct it at source they give you the lowest earned income allowance of €2652. So thats allowances of €7803. Tax on the difference is about €12 a month.

However, on that level of income you should be due a refund.


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## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

I didn't even work for the whole tax year, so my total income was only about £3500. 

Pesky Wesky, I didn't work that many hours and it wasn't a well-paid job. 21% of 700 is nowhere near 15 euro.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Clemmie00 said:


> I didn't even work for the whole tax year, so my total income was only about £3500.
> 
> Pesky Wesky, I didn't work that many hours and it wasn't a well-paid job. 21% of 700 is nowhere near 15 euro.


Sorry, decimal point trouble!

I didn't mean to be nosy about the salary, but I do remember you saying that you did 20 hours a week teaching and earned a decent salary...


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## Clemmie00 (Jun 10, 2012)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Sorry, decimal point trouble!
> 
> I didn't mean to be nosy about the salary, but I do remember you saying that you did 20 hours a week teaching and earned a decent salary...


I initially did 20 hours a week but reduced that due to a personal issue. It was IMO still a fairly decent salary for the number of hours I was doing...certainly wouldn't earn that much in the UK and be able to live off so few hours for similar work! Remember my rent was less than 200/month, so even on a 'low' salary, I still had far more to spare than in the UK.


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