The following is a translated excerpt and video interview with the Spanish publication, The Objective. Read the full version of the original article here.
American lawyer Robert Amsterdam has been in Spain to meet with foreign residents who claim to be discriminated against and targeted by the Tax Agency . According to him, our country “is an atypical case” in the world and has a “broken system.” He compares the Tax Agency to the mafia and adds: “They don’t just take your money, they humiliate you.”
This lawyer, a partner at Amsterdam & Partners LLP , has written a report entitled “Hacienda vs. the People: Spain and the Beckham Law ,” along with Christopher Wales, former advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. His firm, based in London and Washington, has launched a campaign against the Tax Agency in various financial media, supported by a series of legal actions they intend to file in Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
It all revolves around the 2003 Expatriate Law , amended in 2014 to discourage athletes—hence the name “Beckham Law “—which allows foreign residents, usually highly skilled workers, to pay taxes under a series of special rules if they do not wish to make regular personal income tax contributions . This regime is now being questioned, arguing that upon receiving the certificate from the Treasury, the latter no longer has the right to carry out subsequent reviews.
Lawyer Amsterdam spoke to THE OBJECTIVE to explain his crusade against the Ministry of Finance. To begin with, he asserts that his fight is not only for foreigners, but for all Spaniards. “It’s a campaign of persecution against everyone in Spain . The Beckham Law is just one part of the persecution, oppression, and violation of the rule of law. It affects everyone in Spain. This government allows the Treasury to operate outside the law. This is totally unacceptable in a democratic society.”
“What they’re doing to foreigners by discriminating against them and allowing the tax authorities to seize all the money they can is, of course, outrageous, a violation of the fundamental principles of national and international law . What our work has shown is that people in Spain simply have no rights in their relationship with this organization. And that’s due to a series of laws and practices that are virtually unheard of in the Western world.”