The Spanish government decided that I had to declare any overseas assets by the end of April. Fair enough, although I thought that a 10,000€ minimum fine for not filing seemed a bit steep.
But the instructions were all in Spanish legalese. I had to call banks in the UK for information, and even once I understood what I had to do, it didn’t work. This was probably due to a configuration problem with my computer. The website provided instructions which I went through carefully. It still didn’t work. So I got my son to go through them too. It still didn’t work. We tried a third time. It still didn’t work.
Did I mention that there’s a 10,000€ minimum fine for not doing this?
Yelling at the computer didn’t work, so on Monday 29th I called my accountant. He wasn’t sure what I had to do either, and said he’d get back to me. On Monday evening he said he still didn’t know, but he’d found a friend who did. By this time I was really stressed. Even after yoga class, I was still very stressed, and I slept very badly indeed.
So my accountant took me to see his friend on the morning of the last day for avoiding that 10,000€ minimum fine. And his friend was another accountant and just going out. He said he’d be back at 11:00.
By 11:30 I was just about climbing the walls, doing yoga breathing exercises to stop myself from throwing a public fit.
My accountant’s friend came back at about noon, and didn’t know all the details either.
I did some more deep breathing.
He did at least know rather more about it, it’s just that I spent 11 years resident in Spain but paying UK taxes, because software engineers at the observatory were British Civil Servants. “Just leave me the details, and I’ll get it done.”
Did I mention that there’s a 10,000€ minimum fine for not doing this? For me. Not for the person who promised to do it.
But there was nothing else for it. I promised to find out what the annual interest was, and he promised to phone.
We did.
And it got done.
I still don’t know how much I have to pay him, but I expect that it’s less than 10,000€. And now I can get back to work.
