Tax Agency updates rules on suspending contested debts

The Official State Gazette of 6 October 2025 published a resolution of the Presidency of the Tax Agency, dated 24 September, that sets the criteria for suspending the enforcement of acts challenged by an appeal for reconsideration or an economic-administrative claim. The rule took effect the day after publication and replaces the resolution of 21 December 2005, which had governed this matter until now.

It does not change the law, but it does change how the authority applies its rules. It contains instructions on how suspension requests are handled and decided, how the Agency’s bodies deal with the economic-administrative tribunals during a claim and what criteria are followed to carry out judgments of the administrative courts. For a company or a family disputing an assessment, it is a guide to what to expect from the authority.

What suspension is

When someone challenges a tax assessment or penalty, the debt is not frozen on its own: the authority can demand payment through enforcement, with surcharges and interest. To avoid this, the taxpayer can request the suspension of the act while the appeal or claim is decided. It is a specific request, which must be filed and justified; it is not granted automatically merely because an appeal has been lodged.

Typically, suspension requires a guarantee, such as a bank guarantee, a surety insurance policy or a deposit, to secure collection if the appeal is ultimately lost. The law also provides for suspension without a guarantee, for example where enforcement could cause damage that is hard or impossible to repair or where a material, arithmetical or factual error is alleged in the assessment.

What the resolution adds

A resolution of this kind seeks to bring order to the practice of the Agency’s bodies: to unify criteria, reduce differences of treatment between offices and give more predictability to whoever requests a suspension. For the taxpayer, the benefit lies in knowing how the request will be analysed, although the rules of substance remain those of the general tax law and its review regulations. It is also an update of criteria that had gone almost twenty years without renewal.

It also governs coordination with the economic-administrative tribunals, which decide a good part of the claims, and the criteria for carrying out administrative-court judgments, that is, how what judges say is put into effect when they annul or confirm an assessment. These are aspects that rarely reach the press but that condition how long it takes to collect or refund an amount.

What to review

If you have a contested debt, check whether suspension was requested, on what date, with what guarantee and what the authority has replied, because it determines whether forced collection begins. Deadlines are strict and guarantees have a cost that can be significant: a bank guarantee, for instance, generates fees that accumulate for as long as the procedure lasts.

Also keep the documents and watch for electronic notifications, because time limits run from the moment they are made available to the person concerned. The resolution is recent, so it remains to be seen how different offices apply it in practice. Consult your tax adviser before choosing between paying, guaranteeing or appealing without a guarantee in a specific case. A delay in requesting the suspension or in providing the guarantee can leave a person without the protection they sought, with forced collection and surcharges.

Disputing a debt is a right, but it is best done knowing what happens to collection in the meantime.

This article is general information. It is not legal, tax or investment advice, and it does not take anyone’s particular circumstances into account.