These are the self-employed monitored by the Tax Agency for using a lot of cash

This Government has taken the fight against fraud as one of its battle horses, which has put the self-employed group in the focus of the Inspection. This part of the business fabric is a perfect ecosystem for cases of shadow economy to proliferate. For this reason, the Tax Office is keeping a close eye on those who use too much cash.

Cash is the weapon used by some self-employed workers to hide their operations from the Treasury. These freelancers use this liquidity to carry out transactions without creating a digital footprintwhich complicates fraud detection.

However, this does not mean, far from it, that the entire group commits this type of infraction and, neither, that the focus of the Treasury is on the entire set of self-employed.

In fact, the Tax Agency monitors with special relevance a very specific part of the group for its excessive use of cashwhich does not mean that any self-employed worker may be sanctioned for committing similar infractions.

Which self-employed are monitored by the Inspection for using too much cash?

As a starting point, to understand the motivation of the Inspection, we must attend to a segment of the self-employed who declare their income in a different way: professionals who pay taxes under the objective estimation regime.

These freelancers do not carry out a formal accounting of their business, but rather declared based on modules established by the Administrationhence these professionals are known as ‘moduleros’.

But what does this mean for the Inspection? These workers do not pay their income in the same way as the rest of the self-employed for whatever reason, there is a specific reason. This type of business is based on receiving a multitude of daily payments of tiny amounts.

An example of this would be butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, small shops and any other similar business whose operations do not involve the payment of large amounts and, in addition, are made with great assiduity in cash.

If they had to declare all their operations, it would be really easy to hide more than one and, therefore, the Inspection would have great complications in identifying fraud, so they are based on a module system that allows income to be declared based on close amounts.

In this way, the authorities only have to look at the average turnover of similar businesses in the same area to make an approximate calculation of how much a self-employed person would have to enter.

Thus, by way of example, if the greengrocers in the Carabanchel neighborhood in Madrid invoiced an average of 300 euros per day, it would be particularly rare for one of them to only account for 100 euros per day, so the Inspection would approach the establishment to make sure that the reasons why the billing is so low are legitimate.

Understanding all this, the Tax Agency has focused on these self-employed for their excessive use of cash. this surveillance does not imply that the professional has to stop using this payment methodnor reduce its use, but you must be able to demonstrate that all operations are legitimate and in accordance with current law.