Uncertainty generated by the Royal Decree regulating the formation of the registry of tax warehouse extractors
On April 5, 2023, the Royal Decree 249/2023 was published in the Official State Gazette, through which the formation of the Register of extractors of fiscal deposits of products included in the objective scope of the tax on hydrocarbons is regulated.
As we were informed
“the inclusion or exclusion of operators from the Register of extractors shall refer to one or another type of product and shall be effective from the day following the adoption by the competent body of the corresponding reasoned agreement of inclusion or exclusion, which must be notified to the person or entity concerned”.
So far there is no doubt, the problem comes when the Royal Decree 249/2023 on the formation of the Register of extractors of tax warehouses omits relevant issues such as the term in which the Tax Agency must process and resolve the requests for inclusion, as well as the way to proceed of the multiple trading companies, distributors acting within tax warehouses or the tax warehouses themselves (those really affected by the publication of the Royal Decree, as the liability is extended to the owners of the warehouses in cases of tax fraud not related to them) until the registration in the register is carried out.
Although the aforementioned Royal Decree came into force on April 25, we did not have news of the modified form 036 until a few days before. Likewise, as of today, few companies operating in the hydrocarbon sector are lucky enough to have been registered in the Register of Extractors of Fiscal Deposits, which has led, logically, to great uncertainty in the sector about the operation of sales and purchases until such registration is carried out.
As far as is known, the vast majority of registration requests made through form 036 are still in the processing stage. In addition, some of the applications have been accompanied by requests for documentation, descriptive report of the activity, reasons for the registration and similar questions that the interested party should have or will have to attend to in the event that it receives such requests from the Administration.
However, we are confident that in the next few days the applications for registration will be resolved by the Tax Agency and the operational uncertainty generated in the hydrocarbons sector will end.
