The international offensive against the functioning of the Spanish Tax Agency opens a new front. Amsterdam & Partners, the firm led by lawyer Robert Amsterdam that has been examining and publicly denouncing certain practices of the Treasury since 2025, now argues that Spain cannot really speak of a "Tax Liberation Day" because the problem, in its view, has ceased to be solely how much citizens pay to encompass the functioning of the tax administration itself.
"Under the tax administration of the Treasury, no Spanish taxpayer ever gets to free themselves", Amsterdam states in a statement released this Monday from London, coinciding with the debate generated by the latest calculations on the fiscal effort of Spaniards.
La Fundación Civismo has placed this year’s so-called Tax Liberation Day on August 20, two days later than in 2025. According to its methodology, an average taxpayer would need the equivalent of 231 days of income to meet taxes, fees, and contributions. This is a controversial indicator: several economists question whether the complexity of the tax system can be translated into a single date and remind that the calculation does not incorporate the return obtained through public services.
Amsterdam uses precisely that discussion to raise another.
From how much is paid to how the Treasury acts
The lawyer argues that the Spanish debate is focusing on tax rates and fiscal pressure when it should also incorporate the guarantees that a citizen has when the Treasury claims a debt that it considers incorrect.
"We are not talking about tax rates. We are talking about the rule of law," he asserts.
His firm identifies two main problems: the productivity system of the employees of the Tax Agency and the regime applicable when a taxpayer challenges a settlement. He adds other issues related to the transparency of the procedures and the guarantees of the inspected.
Amsterdam goes so far as to state that "from the point of view of the tax administration, there is no country comparable to Spain" and accuses the Spanish system of violating principles of the OECD and international law.
These are accusations from the firm, not conclusions from the OECD or Spanish courts.
The consulting firm that landed in Spain to investigate the Treasury
Amsterdam & Partners has been developing a specific campaign about Spain for over a year. The international firm, with a presence in London and Washington, began by focusing especially on inspections of foreigners covered by the tax regime for expatriates, known as Beckham Law.
In May 2025, it presented in Madrid the report Hacienda vs. The People, which DEMÓCRATA has accessed, in which it compiled testimonies and denounced alleged abusive practices against certain foreign taxpayers. A month later, it sent a formal complaint to the OECD accusing Spain of failing to comply with international standards in the tax treatment of expatriates.
The offensive continued this year with the publication of Hacienda and the Dual State, written by Robert Amsterdam and Christopher Wales, former tax policy advisor to the British Government. The book broadens the focus: it is no longer limited to the Beckham Law, but questions structural aspects of the functioning of the Spanish tax administration.
Amsterdam stated in June that his firm had around a dozen open procedures in Spain. His campaign has also included advertisements in international media and presentations to Spanish professionals.
The controversial productivity system of inspectors
One of its main objectives is the productivity bonus received by officials of the Tax Agency.
Amsterdam argues that this system generates perverse incentives because it would link part of the remuneration to the results obtained by the Administration. In his statement, he speaks of an "opaque" system linked to collection and denounces that an inspector can receive productivity for actions that are subsequently annulled.
The functioning of these bonuses has been generating controversy and litigation for years, but it cannot be stated without nuances that an inspector simply receives a commission for each settlement made.
In fact, a ruling from the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid last April held that the implementation and receipt of the productivity bonus of the AEAT responds to principles of "transparency, objectivity, and legality" and that its existence does not compromise the independence and impartiality of the official by itself.
Amsterdam's criticism is precisely directed against that architecture. He demands to change it and increase transparency about the criteria used to determine productivity.
Do you have to pay the Tax Agency before you can appeal?
The second accusation requires another clarification.
Amsterdam argues that taxpayers who intend to challenge an assessment are faced with a system of "pay first and appeal later". The legal reality is somewhat more complex.
Filing an appeal against a tax assessment does not automatically suspend its execution as a general rule, but that does not mean that the taxpayer always has to pay it in full before appealing. The General Tax Law allows for the suspension to be requested and obtained through certain guarantees, such as a deposit, a bank guarantee, or a surety insurance. There are also cases of suspension without guarantees.
In tax sanctions, the protection is even greater: if a request for reconsideration or an economic-administrative claim is filed on time, its execution is automatically suspended without the need to provide a guarantee as long as they are not final in the administrative route.
The reproach from the office points, therefore, to the cost and difficulties that may involve guaranteeing a debt for years while litigating, not to the legal impossibility of appealing without having paid beforehand.
There is even a procedure for the taxpayer to recover the cost of the guarantees used to suspend a debt when the tax act is ultimately declared inappropriate.
The Tax Agency has already responded to Amsterdam
The Tax Agency has not remained aloof from this offensive. When Amsterdam & Partners began its campaign regarding inspections related to the Beckham Law, the Tax Agency rejected the accusations and provided its own data. According to the AEAT, only 185 of approximately 37,000 beneficiaries of that regime had been subject to inspection over a decade, around 0.5%. The Agency also stated that approximately 70% of those verifications had ended with an agreement from the taxpayer.
The Tax Agency defended that the actions pursued specific irregularities, including simulated employment contracts, fictitious companies, or non-compliance with the necessary requirements to qualify for the special regime. The AEAT has also rejected that there is a widespread persecution against foreign taxpayers.
The discussion, therefore, faces two radically different diagnoses about the same system.
Amsterdam links the problem with SMEs and foreign investment
The firm now takes an additional step and tries to connect the functioning of the Treasury with the Spanish economy.
In its statement, it maintains that the action of the tax administration has a "deterrent effect" on the growth of SMEs and also points to the evolution of foreign direct investment. According to Amsterdam, some international investors would be perceiving problems of legal security in Spain related to taxation.
Here, caution is also necessary: the existence of a causal relationship between the practices reported by Amsterdam and the evolution of foreign investment is not demonstrated. The statement itself acknowledges that there are multiple factors capable of explaining the movements of investment.
Its argument is another: if a company considers the action of the tax administration unpredictable, that perception can become one more element when deciding where to invest.
The fear of tax advisors, another of its accusations
Amsterdam also introduces a difficult-to-measure accusation: it maintains that Spanish tax professionals avoid publicly reporting certain deficiencies for fear of reprisals from the Treasury.
The firm claims to have detected this fear during its investigation and considers that it limits the debate on the reform of the tax administration.
It does not provide names or data in the note that would allow quantifying this phenomenon, so it is again a conclusion of Amsterdam & Partners based on its work in Spain, not a fact supported by public statistics.
A debate that is no longer just about August 20
The clash appears after the Tax Freedom Day has reopened the discussion about tax pressure.
Civismo calculates that the date has shifted this year to August 20. Its critics question the methodology and refuse to present all taxes as an amount that the citizen pays without compensation; its defenders believe that turning the tax burden into days allows for a simple visualization of the effort required from taxpayers.
Amsterdam & Partners now intends to take the discussion out of that territory. "This is not a debate about how much taxpayers pay," the firm maintains. For Amsterdam, the issue is to determine whether the system sufficiently guarantees the rights of those who disagree with an action of the Treasury and decide to combat it administratively or judicially.
Hence the play with Tax Liberation Day. Against the August 20 calculated by Civismo, Amsterdam maintains that Spain does not have a possible liberation date as long as it does not reform the functioning of its tax administration.
It is the next phase of a campaign initiated in 2025 with foreign taxpayers of the Beckham Law and that, a year later, seeks to shift the discussion to the entire Spanish tax system.