Hacienda, the Spanish tax authorities, are demanding that Francisco Vallejo Pons, widely acclaimed the best chess player in Spain and ranked number one by the Spanish Chess Federation, pay “something less than €100,000” in back taxes. According to Vallejo, these taxes are due to his having “… played online poker (in 2011) and lost… about €5,715 euros.” This is down by a factor of six the initial figure demanded by the Spanish treasury. “There was no liquidation of that [the original €600,000 penalty] because my lawyer and I were arguing with them and providing documentation… (so) today they charge me … close to €100,000,” Vallejo said.
Tax Agency sources explained to this newspaper that before January 1st, 2012, the legislation on personal income tax historically established that gambling losses would not be computed (that is, could not be deducted from the profits). By this law, for example, if someone won in a casino a single prize of €10,000 but throughout the year had lost €8,000, he or she could not deduct the losses.
Many players and groups protested, so “Hacienda understands that this is not reasonable and they themselves modify it in October 2012 with retroactive effects to January 1st,” Domínguez explains. The Tax Agency confirms that Law 16/2012, of December 27th, introduced a modification of the tax regime applicable to the profits of the game by which they were able to compute the losses in the game.
Full article: El Diario (Spanish)
