The tax on the increased value of urban land, Best known as a municipal surplus, has become a controversial tribute following the bursting of the housing bubble.

If your taxable event is precisely the revaluation of land, the crisis has shown that, often, The opposite situation may occur: the actual price of the property is below the assessed value. This situation leads many individuals and companies have to sell their farms for a value less than acquisition, generating, nonetheless, the accrual of goodwill.

However, the last case is in favor of the affected is not subject to tax, contrary defended by the Administration.

Without a fact that tax

In this line, the Superior Court of Catalonia, in sentence 18 July 2013, has refused to municipalities to collect tax if no such goodwill, ensuring that “the increase in value is the first element of the taxable event, so that on the hypothesis that there is no such increase, no tribute is created and this despite the content of objective rules share calculation Article 107 Act Local Tax”.

So, according to the ruling, by rapporteur Judge Gomis Masqué, “to miss an essential element of the taxable event, can arise tax liability”.

In this case, the appellant criticized the “radical dissociation or duality” required between taxation and the actual economic situation onto which is applied, since the various municipal ordinances that regulate tribute rely on “reality-traditional production continued and significant increases in land value- that has nothing to do with the current situation, in which for several years has been decreasing this value without interruption”.

In fact, according to data provided, the housing prices have fallen between the second quarter of 2008 and second 2011 more than 24,6 percent and, in return, the theoretical evolution in the same period under applicable ordinance is increased 8,1 percent. The ruling supports this argument and ensures that legal contradiction “can not and should be resolved in favor of the calculation method and to the detriment of economic quality”, since this would ignore the principles of equity, justice and economic capacity”.

Further, failure predicts that the same conclusion must be reached when there has been an increase in value but the amount is “proven less than that resulting from application of the method of calculation, to be infringed the same principles”.