
6. Income tax (Impuesto de la Renta)
The reasons why FIPE in all cases of a normal inheritance recommends a will in Spain, are the following:
- If your inheritance in Spain is done over a will made abroad, or decided by an inheritance court abroad in absence of a will, the heirs must prepare an authorised translation and also have an "apostille" (an official stamp verifying the signature of the judge) on the original document. This means additional work, costs and time.
- The time limit for making an inheritance tax declaration in Spain is 6 months from the death. If you are waiting for the probate from the home country to be issued, and then have to make the translation and get the "apostille" before taking it to Spain, you may easily overrun this time limit and be in for fines.
- With a will in Spain you can to a certain degree regulate the distribution of the assets. For instance you can make sure that your spouse will have the undivided users right for life, or that only one of the children is taking over the house in Spain, the others having been compensated by assets in the home country.
- You can also make an inheritance tax saving by making the right kind of will in Spain. We shall go into the details of this in a later chapter