Judgment summary
The Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Madrid, Sección Quinta, ruled on a recurso contencioso-administrativo brought by RG Let's Communicate Together SL against a TEARM resolution of 27 January 2022 that had dismissed accumulated economic-administrative claims NUM000 and NUM001.
Those claims concerned two liquidations of Impuesto sobre Sociedades for 2015, derived from disconformity acts A02-NUM002 and A02-NUM003, following an inspection into an alleged operación vinculada between the company and its sole shareholder and administrator, Dña. Esmeralda.
The court desestimó (dismissed) the recurso in its entirety, confirming the TEARM resolution and the underlying liquidation agreements, and imposed costs on the recurrente, capped at 2.000 euros más IVA.
Background
RG Let's Communicate Together SL was constituted by public deed on 06/06/2014, with a share capital of 3.000 euros divided into 3.000 participaciones of 1 euro each, fully subscribed and paid up by the sole shareholder, Dña. Esmeralda, who was also appointed administradora única.
Its registered fiscal address was initially plaza Jesús, número 5, 3º, Madrid, later moved to calle Almirante número 5, Madrid, with its domicilio social at calle Lagasca número 84, Madrid. Its corporate object comprised publicidad, comunicación and elaboración de campañas publicitarias.
According to information provided to the Inspección, the services invoiced consisted of developing communication strategies for clients to gain commercial visibility in the media, developing web pages, events, and also working on the international expansion of clients.
On 31 December 2015 the company paid an invoice in favour of the shareholder for 40.000 euros for prestación de servicios profesionales. The Inspección also found that the shareholder enjoyed various goods and services of a personal nature that were paid by the company, amounting to 48.592,55 euros + IVA, which it treated as an undeclared retribución en especie.
The underlying investigation and comprobación actions were opened on 03/12/2018 under article 148.2 LGT and article 178.3 RGAT, concerning Impuesto sobre Sociedades for 2014 and 2015, and parallel actions were carried out regarding the shareholder's IRPF for 2014 and 2015.
Core dispute
The dispute concerned whether an operación vinculada existed, within the meaning of article 18 LIS, between the company and its sole shareholder/administrator, and, if so, how it should be valued.
The acuerdo de liquidación derived from acta A02-NUM003 was limited to the regularisation of the operación vinculada between the mercantil and its socia. The acuerdo derived from acta A02-NUM002 recogía the totality of the tax regularisation, including the treatment of personal expenses as retribución en especie.
The Inspección valued the operación vinculada using the método del coste incrementado, arriving at a value for 2015 of 165.726,46 euros (ingresos 267.018,38 euros, gastos de explotación 88.576,75 euros, 5% margen sobre el coste), reduced by the 40.000 euros invoice and the retribuciones en especie not declared, giving a result of 77.133,91 euros.
The resulting liquidaciones provisionales were: one for a total importe a ingresar of 3.551,46 euros (3.103,43 euros cuota y 448,03 euros intereses de demora), and another for a total importe a devolver of 14.093,85 euros (12.193,32 euros cuota y 1.900,53 euros intereses de demora). The cuantía del pleito was fixed at 14.093,85 euros by decreto of 17 November 2022.
The recurrente also raised procedural objections, including that the liquidación practised on the sociedad was not firme, as allegedly required by article 18.12 LIS and the jurisprudencia of the Tribunal Supremo, and that the existence of two acuerdos de liquidación against the sociedad contravened article 143.2 LGT.
Court findings
The Sala applied the doctrina fixed by the STS de 21 de junio de 2023 (recurso de casación 7268/2021), which holds that where a natural person provides a service to a related company which the company in turn provides to independent third parties, and the related company lacks means to carry out the operation without the necessary and imprescindible participation of the natural person, the two services are substantially the same, and the price paid by the third party is an acceptable comparable for valuing the vinculada operation.
The court noted that Sección Cuarta of the same Sala had already resolved identical questions concerning the same socia, Dña. Esmeralda, in Sentencia 125/2024 (IRPF 2015) and Sentencia 124/2024 (IRPF 2014), the latter taken into account in Sentencia 659/2025 concerning Impuesto sobre Sociedades of the same entity for 2014. For reasons of coherence, equality in application of the law and legal certainty, the Sala reproduced and adopted the fundamentos of Sentencia 125/2024.
Applying those fundamentos, the court confirmed that the servicio contratado by clients was, in substance, the personal service of the socia, that the sociedad's contribution (through employees hired on brief prácticas contracts for tareas mecánicas, on low salaries) was minimal and secondary, and that the presupuestos for an operación vinculada were therefore met.
On valuation, the court confirmed the use of the método del coste incrementado as the most adequate method given the type of services, the qualification of the recurrente and the limited medios of the sociedad. It rejected the método del precio libre comparable for lack of valid comparables, and the método de reventa because the margin applied by independent persons or entities to equiparable operations was unknown. The 5% margin applied was found to be a common margin for this type of service and amparado by the Directrices OCDE.
The court also rejected the argument that not all of the sociedad's benefits should have been imputed, noting that the Inspección partió de the totality of ingresos derived from the activity, given the direct vinculación with the recurrente (who received no separate retribución for her activity for the sociedad), together with the related gastos deducibles, so that the límite in article 18.10 LIS (that the valoración administrativa should not exceed the renta efectivamente derivada de la operación) was not exceeded.
On firmness, the court found article 18.12.3º TRLIS and article 19.3 RIS inapplicable, because both the sociedad and the socia had been subject to simultaneous, not sequential, inspection procedures, so the presupuesto de hecho for those provisions did not arise, in line with the doctrine of the STS de 18 de mayo de 2020 (recurso 6187/2017) and other cited SSTS and SSTSJ Madrid.
On the existence of two acuerdos de liquidación against the sociedad, the court found no contravention of article 143.2 LGT, since the questions related to the liquidación del IS had no incidence in sede de IRPF, and article 19 RIS expressly permits levantar an acta distinta when the comprobación de operaciones vinculadas is not the sole object of the regularización carried out in an inspection procedure.
Finally, on the classification of part of the shareholder's honorarios as retribución en especie without applying article 43.1.1º LIRPF, the court confirmed that the gastos in question (productos de estética, ropa de Zadig et Voltaire Ibérica SL, Valentino Spagna SL, LVMH Iberia SL, División Louis Vuitton, servicios de peluquería, zapatos y bolsos de Christian Louboutin España SA, entre otros) were of a personal nature, paid by the entidad on behalf of the socia without being imputed to her, and thus constituted an unreported renta. The importe imputed was subtracted in calculating the ajuste por operación vinculada and simultaneously added to the socia's rendimientos de actividades económicas, avoiding double taxation, and matched the value on the supporting invoices.
Outcome
The Sala desestimó (dismissed) in its entirety the recurso contencioso-administrativo número 274/2022, confirming the TEARM resolution of 27 January 2022 and the acuerdo de liquidación from which it derived.
Costs of the instancia were imposed on the parte actora, capped, pursuant to article 139.4 of the Ley 29/1998, at 2.000 euros más IVA, in view of the naturaleza y complejidad del asunto and the professional actuación desarrollada.
The sentencia was declared susceptible to recurso de casación, to be prepared before the same Sala within thirty días from notification, subject to the requirements of article 89.2 of the Ley de la Jurisdicción Contencioso-administrativa and the deposit under the Disposición Adicional Decimoquinta of the Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial.
Tp method highlighted
The Inspección valued the operación vinculada using the método del coste incrementado under article 18.4.b) LIS, which adds to the coste de producción del servicio the margen habitual en operaciones idénticas o similares con personas o entidades independientes.
A margin of 5% was applied to the servicios de bajo valor añadido rendered by the sociedad, on the basis that this was a common margin for such auxiliary services and was amparado por las Directrices de la OCDE en materia de precios de transferencia.
The método del precio libre comparable was rejected for lack of valid comparables, and the método de reventa was rejected because the margin applied by independent persons or entities to equiparable operations was unknown.
The resulting valuation for 2015 was 165.726,46 euros (ingresos 267.018,38 euros, gastos de explotación 88.576,75 euros, 5% margen sobre el coste), which was then reduced by the 40.000 euros invoiced for prestación de servicios and by the retribuciones en especie not declared, giving a final result of 77.133,91 euros.
Major issues / areas of contention
- Whether an operación vinculada, within the meaning of article 18 LIS, existed between RG Let's Communicate Together SL and its sole shareholder and administrator, Dña. Esmeralda, in respect of communication services invoiced to third-party clients.
- Whether the método del coste incrementado, with a 5% margin, was the correct method to value that operación vinculada, as opposed to the método del precio libre comparable or the método de reventa.
- Whether the liquidación practised on the sociedad required prior firmeza of a liquidación practised on the related socia, under article 18.12 LIS and article 19.3 RIS.
- Whether the issuance of two separate acuerdos de liquidación against the same sociedad, based on two disconformity acts, contravened article 143.2 LGT.
- Whether personal expenses paid by the sociedad on behalf of the socia (aesthetic products, designer clothing, hairdressing services, shoes and bags) could be classified as an undeclared retribución en especie without applying the rules of article 43.1.1º LIRPF.