The following is a translation of a feature interview published by the leading Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo with Robert Amsterdam regarding his work defending taxpayers in Spain from exploitation by the Spanish Tax Authority.
Robert Amsterdam, Hacienda’s Scourge: “If Inspectors’ Behaviour Occurred in the Private Sector, Those Responsible Would Go to Prison — But at the Tax Agency They Get a Bigger Bonus”
For four decades he has litigated against oligarchs, authoritarian regimes and powerful institutional structures. Now, the founder of Amsterdam & Partners and one of the most feared figures in international litigation has placed Spain’s Tax Agency at the centre of his next battle. He denounces a system that “has broken the basic checks and balances of the rule of law.”
Luigi Benedicto Borges
“The situation in Spain is unlike anything I have witnessed in other countries. Spain’s Tax Agency is literally at war with citizens and with the business community.”
When Robert Ross Amsterdam (New York, 1956) speaks about Spain, he does not resort to euphemisms. His blunt and severe diagnoses, forged over 40 years of litigation against governments and major power structures across multiple jurisdictions, have for several months now found a new adversary: the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT).
“Spain’s sanctions system is not designed to ensure compliance, but to intimidate and punish,” he maintains, both privately and publicly. Amsterdam has given visibility to his views in a way that is not new for him or his team: a double-page advertisement in the Financial Times denouncing how, within an aggressive revenue-driven policy, tax inspectors’ bonus schemes incentivise unjust decisions.
“We will demonstrate how the principle of equality is not respected, how the presumption of innocence is violated, how the right to good administration is systematically denied, and how effective access to justice is obstructed. We will do all of this, and much more, using the abundant evidence provided by taxpayers themselves,”
he explains to Crónica. Amsterdam is the founder and managing partner of Amsterdam & Partners LLP, based in Washington and London.
With a reputation built on high-profile global litigation, the Canadian-American lawyer has directed his legal and media firepower against the AEAT through a series of advertisements aimed at “informing people who are already affected, or who may be considering a potentially disastrous decision to relocate to Spain,” about “the risks and dangers involved.”
“It is not an offensive. It is an awareness campaign. We requested meetings with the Spanish government, which we intended to use to promote reforms — an area in which we have expertise — but without success,” he stresses. His aim is to show “how the AEAT’s incentive and bonus system distorts procedures and outcomes for taxpayers.”
In his view, “Spain is an extreme case in terms of taxpayer rights. At every level, from ministers downwards, checks, balances and accountability are set aside in the race to achieve ever-higher tax collection.”
He wants to focus attention on “the unlimited and illegitimate powers of Hacienda”
used to “attack not only domestic companies, but also foreign individuals and businesses.”
“They live in fear”
The picture he paints is unsettling: law firms unwilling to represent certain taxpayers for fear of reprisals; affected individuals abandoned by their own advisers; tax audits that become “processes of psychological and economic attrition…”
“The world has the right to know how dangerous Spain’s tax administration really is,”
he insists.
“We will present specific evidence of flagrant breaches of data-protection rules and laws. We will demonstrate how Royal Decrees have been used to impose new tax-administration obligations without proper democratic oversight. We will show how fundamental rights to effective judicial protection are frustrated by the very structure of Spain’s economic-administrative tax tribunals, which lack independence — as ruled by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the Santander case. These tribunals are incompatible with basic principles of legality.”
This is not the international firm’s first assault on Spanish Hacienda. A year ago, Amsterdam & Partners also chose the Financial Times to publish an advertisement branding Spanish tax inspectors and officials as “Spanish tax pickpockets” for pursuing foreign taxpayers who had made use of the so-called “Beckham Law” — a regime allowing certain expatriate workers to be taxed at a reduced flat rate for several years — which the firm described as evidence of an unfair and hostile tax system.
The advert was echoed in Belgium (Le Soir) and the United States (The Wall Street Journal). On that occasion, the campaign deeply angered the Tax Agency, which — contrary to its usual practice — issued a forceful response, denouncing what it described as “a smear campaign based on false and serious accusations.”
The agency, under the Ministry of Finance, broke its customary silence in public debates and emphasised the need to verify the correct application of special tax regimes, arguing that they represent a loss of public revenue that must be controlled.
Response from Hacienda
The Tax Agency stated that, over the past ten years, only 0.5% of the approximately 37,000 beneficiaries of the Beckham Law had been audited for potential non-compliance. It also defended its inspectors, distancing their productivity supplements from the outcomes of individual cases. For tax technicians and inspectors, the campaign was aimed at client acquisition through “aggressive campaigns detached from reality.”
In recent weeks, dozens of Spanish self-employed workers and small business owners have contacted Amsterdam, although he does not specify who his clients are.
“As a lawyer, I am bound by a duty of confidentiality to my clients. I cannot comment on the specific cases we will bring before European courts until they are made public. But when those proceedings progress at European level, I will discuss them in detail and will be happy to answer any questions,” he says.
Amsterdam does clarify that his firm “has existed for more than 45 years” and “has no interest in profiting from the misfortune of the Spanish people.”
“We have a select number of clients who have authorised us to lead this fight to challenge how Spain’s tax system operates and to bring justice and a Taxpayer Bill of Rights to Spain. That is exactly what we intend to do.”
Amsterdam has studied Spain’s trajectory for years — and his assessments are far from flattering.
“The rule of law is being undermined in Spain in many different ways. The Juan de Mariana Institute has documented the rapid and alarming deterioration of the country’s international standing in recent years. One of the areas where this decline is most evident is tax administration,” he notes. To support his argument, he cites Professor William Burke-White, who recently stated at an international tax conference in New York that
“the rule of law is not tested in constitutional preambles, but in the day-to-day functioning of government. Tax administration represents the most continuous and coercive of those functions.”
When Amsterdam says that “the situation in Spain is unlike anything I have witnessed elsewhere,” he includes Russia, where he experienced one of the most difficult moments of his career. In 2003, he was hired to defend Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then Russia’s richest man, CEO of the oil company Yukos and the main opponent of President Vladimir Putin.
In 2005, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to eight years in a Siberian prison. On the night of the verdict, Amsterdam was detained in the middle of the night by plain-clothes security agents who entered his hotel room. Far from being intimidated, he launched a media campaign to secure Khodorkovsky’s release. The Russian magnate and philanthropist was ultimately freed in 2013.
Amsterdam argues that under Putin’s regime, one knows who the enemy is — but not in a democracy like Spain.
“We will show how Spain is an extreme case when it comes to taxpayer rights, and how at every level, from ministers downward, checks, balances and accountability are abandoned in the pursuit of ever-greater tax revenue.”
He is particularly critical of “the AEAT’s incentive and bonus system, which in his view distorts procedures and outcomes for taxpayers.”
A “perverse” design
For Amsterdam, the core problem lies not merely in individual failures, but in a “perverse” system design.
“People and businesses live in fear of the AEAT. Inspectors are aware of this and use it as a weapon. Law firms — even the largest ones — fear the Tax Agency and often refuse to represent clients who wish to appeal assessments issued by inspectors.”
His firm claims to have witnessed situations in which “long-standing clients are abandoned by their lawyers out of fear.”
He adds that “inspectors construct false narratives to impose undue payments.”
“They ignore documentary evidence submitted by taxpayers when it does not fit their narrative. They omit key documents from the file that would support the taxpayer’s position. We have seen all of this and much more. This behaviour is not normal.”
As an example, he cites companies that “have been driven into bankruptcy or forced to shut down by the AEAT as a result of false tax claims made by an inspector,” and the lack of legal safeguards and counterweights to prevent such outcomes, “as exist in most countries.”
“This is not simply a ‘harsh tax policy.’ If it occurred in the private sector, those responsible would go to prison. At the AEAT, they get a bigger bonus.”
Why does this behaviour occur? Amsterdam — who has represented Kim Dotcom in the Megaupload case and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in its dispute with the Zelensky government — identifies three reasons: “Public spending is wasteful, the country is indebted, and the government is desperate to extract ever more tax revenue.”
“AEAT staff lack the training, management, moral and ethical commitment, and procedural constraints found in other countries.”
“They receive explicit financial incentives linked to collection targets.”
“Blatant lies”
“Its Ethical Code places far greater emphasis on loyalty to the organisation than on taxpayer rights,” the lawyer criticises, claiming to have witnessed “blatant lies”
by inspectors during audit procedures.
“We have seen the AEAT mislead its counterparts in other countries in order to gain advantages,” he adds.
Amsterdam does not limit himself to public denunciation. His campaign includes concrete reform proposals, inspired by international models.
“We propose abolishing the bonus system and replacing it with a market-aligned, competitive salary structure, supported by performance indicators based on a much broader range of taxpayer-satisfaction and efficiency metrics,” he says.
He also advocates introducing a new, binding Taxpayer Bill of Rights, similar to those in the United States or Italy, and rebalancing the relationship between taxpayers and the AEAT by establishing mutual respect and reinforcing the taxpayer’s constitutional right to the presumption of innocence “and to a presumption of veracity equivalent to that enjoyed by the AEAT in court.”
Two further proposals aim to “strengthen the presumption of innocence”
and “prevent the obligation to pay unjust assessments from continuing to function as a mechanism to obstruct or delay access to justice”: allowing taxpayers to challenge audit actions during the inspection itself, not only at the end; and requiring payment of assessments only once a final resolution exists, following inspections and appeals.
Continuous surveillance
If the present already seems alarming, Amsterdam finds the immediate future deeply troubling — especially due to the combination of new reporting obligations and the intensive use of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence.
“What we are witnessing is not a normal modernisation,” he warns.
“A permanent surveillance architecture is being built over citizens and businesses. Spain is moving toward a model of tax control that treats every taxpayer as a potential — indeed, a probable — offender, subject to continuous monitoring without effective judicial safeguards.”
Immediate Supply of Information (SII), mandatory electronic invoicing, and the mass collection of data from digital platforms, payment intermediaries and crypto-assets amount, in his view, to “a system of continuous supervision in which every taxpayer is treated as a potential offender.”
“There is a list of new procedures that will be introduced in 2026 with the support of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence. I fear for the security of ordinary taxpayers in Spain, who face unlimited intrusion by the Tax Agency into their daily lives,” he says.
Amsterdam predicts “a black-box system in which decisions with severe economic consequences are taken without explanation, without accountability and without effective remedy.”
Hence his warning: “Hacienda wants to be Big Brother, because the balance between tax control and fundamental rights has been completely lost.”
Before European courts, Amsterdam says, “we will present evidence of violations of rights enshrined not only in the Spanish Constitution but also in EU law. We will submit concrete proof of the breakdown of legal certainty — an issue widely criticised by jurists and academics in Spain.”
He also denounces “the lack of proportionality in audits and penalties,”
which he says has already been “recognised by European courts as a specifically Spanish problem.”
Although he does not disclose the specific cases he will bring before Brussels, he does point to the type of situations that will serve as precedents — citing Modelo 720 as a key example. The CJEU ruled that this regime violated EU law, particularly the principles of proportionality, legal certainty and free movement of capital.
“National legislation requiring Spanish tax residents to declare their assets or rights abroad is contrary to EU law,” the CJEU judgment stated, identifying three aspects of the regime that “went beyond what was necessary to achieve those objectives.”
“Spain has a weak record before European courts when it comes to sanctions. These can be arbitrary and disproportionate. There are numerous examples of the extraordinary use of excessively high penalties by Hacienda.”
A warning that frames his latest crusade: a direct confrontation with a model of state power, the limits of administrative authority, and the place of the citizen vis-à-vis public administration.
YouTubers vs. the “Tax Absurdity”
“We are facing a genuine tax absurdity.”
The new legal teams representing YouTubers Guillermo Díaz (Willyrex) and Samuel de Luque (Vegetta777) announced last week that they are filing a contentious-administrative appeal before the National Court against recent rulings of the Central Economic-Administrative Tribunal, which require them to pay taxes in Spain for the years 2016 and 2017.
During those years, the YouTubers relocated to Andorra for its low tax rates, initiating a wave that has turned the small principality into a common place of residence for digital creators.
“Our clients are being required to pay taxes in a country where they neither live nor work, ignoring both their effective residence and the location from which they carry out their economic activity,” their lawyers Marc Urgell and Iñaki Picaza stated. They echo Amsterdam’s criticism of the alleged “legal uncertainty” suffered by their clients.