Fiscal Amnesty Inquiries are being investigated for suspected crime of Money Laundering

In 2012 the Spanish Government surprisingly decided to introduce measures in order to apply a fiscal amnesty and collect taxes from fraud for an amount of 2.500 million of euros. People complaint about it because they had the impression it was an unfair measure.

Finally, the Spanish Government collected a higher amount of money, around 12.000 billion euros. Nowadays, probably most of the reliable taxpayers must be happy about the fact that the Spanish Tax agency has opened around 357 investigation files and has sent them to SEPLAC in order to find out where money comes from and investigate if the owners of the money could have committed money laundering.

As far as I am concerned, the fiscal amnesty seemed to be a “trap” to these ones who did not pay taxes when they had to and also obtained money from illegal sources, even for funding terrorists. This measure was a success when it comes to collect taxes but at the same time, it appears to be a failure because it created an atmosphere of distrust, and as a result in the short-term can be effective but not in the long-term to eradicate Money laundering and Tax evasion.