The Constitutional Court, in its entirety, has unanimously resolved the question of unconstitutionality raised by the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the National Court regarding various modifications introduced in the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) by Royal Decree-Law 3/2016, dated December 2nd.
This Royal Decree-Law aimed to implement measures in the tax field to consolidate public finances, as well as other urgent measures in social matters.
The Court has determined that the approval of these measures through a Royal Decree-Law has violated Article 86.1 of the Spanish Constitution, as this normative instrument cannot “affect the rights, duties, and freedoms of citizens regulated in Title I.” Specifically, the duty to contribute to the support of public expenses established in Article 31.1 of the Spanish Constitution is considered affected.
The evaluated modifications to the Corporate Income Tax include:
- Limits applicable to large companies for offsetting negative tax bases and deferred tax assets.
- Introduction of a new limit for large companies applicable to deductions to avoid double taxation.
- Obligation to automatically include in the taxable base the impairments of holdings that have been deducted in previous years.
For reasons of the principle of legal certainty (Article 9.3 of the Spanish Constitution), the judgment states that tax obligations accrued by the Corporate Income Tax that, at the date of the judgment, have been definitively decided by a judgment with the force of res judicata (Article 40.1 of the Organic Law of the Constitutional Court) or by a final administrative resolution cannot be revised. Furthermore, settlements that have not been challenged by the date of the judgment and self-assessments for which no rectification has been requested by that date cannot be revised.
The effects of this judgment are limited to the past, following the same line as the Court adopted in STC 182/2021 regarding municipal capital gains. It is worth noting that the judgment, which includes a dissenting opinion by Justice Enrique Arnaldo Alcubilla, has not yet been published.
Complete sentence in INFORMATIVE NOTE Nº 6-2024.pdf (tribunalconstitucional.es)
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