The income's integration into the tax base of spanish legal persons' tax

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand how the corporate income tax law integrates into the tax base the income of Spanish companies. For this purpose, it examines the European Community’s legal dispositions of the Spanish case study. It makes an analysis of several data sources of Spain, mainly, the Accounting law and the Corporate Income Tax Law. Results show that the Spanish Tax System, since 1995, assumes the direct estimation regime as a method of corporate tax base's determination. It means that this jurisdiction assumes the profit determined under the accounting standards as available ability to pay’s the criterion, although subject to law’s adjustments. Thus, the income constitutes a tax base's element; its integration happens due to the acceptance of the accounting profit, where the income also represents one of the components. In this way, corporate income tax legislator does clarify the concept of income referring to the accounting law. This research aids in understanding better the determination of the taxable basis of companies, clarifying how the recognition of the company’s income occurs.