International law firm Baker & McKenzie has warned against any delays in complying with a new Spanish voluntary disclosure scheme as approved at the end of March.

The disclosure programme had been unveiled as part of the government’s draft budget, aimed at slashing the budget deficit to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product from 6.5 per cent. Italy, Spain’s southern European neighbour, has repatriated wealth several times and the latest tax amnesty in 2009 repatriated €135 billion (around $177.5 billion), 98 per cent of which was from offshore tax havens, according to the UK's Ledbury Research. The country’s new technocratic government announced in December that assets repatriated in 2009 will be subject to a one-off tax of 1.5 per cent.

“It is important to note that the Spanish government has already announced some new relevant anti-avoidance measures that will be adopted later this year,” Marnin Michaels, head of the firm’s wealth management practice in Zurich, said in a note.

“Some of them are focused on increasing the tax penalties for unreported assets and others to extend, indefinitely, the status of the limitation period for such unreported assets. The pressure to become tax compliant is huge and the moment to think about it is right now,” Michaels said.  

His colleagues had been speaking in Zurich and Geneva about the Spanish announcement. Under the programme, individuals and firms must disclose unreported income or assets by paying a special 10 per cent levy on the amount or acquisition value, with no criminal or administrative penalties, surcharges or interest.