Would anyone "in the know" be so good and throw some light on this issue , please !?
Apparently , the complete scrapping of wealth tax
( in keeping with EU-trends , where only France still insists on this nonsense tax , which reportedly costs more to collect , than the total proceeds of it ) was announced last year ;
yet , the tax sources appear to be contradictory ...
Help , anybody ?
Thanxxxx !

In what way contradictory? The law suspending wealth tax was on the 23rd December and published in the BOE of 25th December:

http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2008/12/2...1998-52024.pdf

See article 3 on page 13.

My understanding (notwithstanding what's in the paperwork, which I've looked at online) is that it's not repealed as such, what's happened is they've reduced the amount payable to 0%. So fine at the moment, but not as cut and dried as we're being given the impression.

If anyone can give a good Spanish legal translation into understandable legal English there's a lot of us out here wondering exactly what it means!!!

You are absolutely correct. The tax REMAINS. However, the tax rate has been reduced to ZERO.

What this means in reality is that you must make a tax declaration but you will pay no tax.

In this way, they reserve the right to increase the tax rate from 0 at a later date without having to reintroduce a new tax.

I wonder if a change of government would evoke that!

That's why, in my first reply, I used the word suspending rather than abolishing.

The way I read it is that there is a 100% reduction on the amount payable rather than a reduction in the rate. There is a subtle difference.

The law also refers to the fact that that the articles in the original law relating to declaration of the tax have been repealed so that, in effect, there is no obligation to submit a declaration.

However, they have reserved the right to retain the information given in previous declarations.

Ok now I'm confused (again)....

There is or is not an obligation to submit a declaration?
and if you don't have to it makes no odds what the rate is anyway?
BUT
the rate has been reduced to 0%?
Or there is still a % to pay (if so, what?) but what you've got to pay resulting from that percentage is reduced to 0? That sounds mad & unlikely.

And - this all only applies to people fiscally resident, ie spending more than 183 days per 365 in Spain whether or not registered as residents. ??

And - whatever it was or is, the wealth tax relates to ALL properties/bank holdings/shares/valuables etc wherever in the world, not just Spain?

The obligation to submit a declaration has been removed for both residents and non-residents.