Estimación objetiva: you pay on square metres and tables, not on what you earn
The módulos everybody knows. Income comes from indices set by ministerial order, so a bad year is taxed the same as a good one.
The IRPF regime in which income is worked out by applying signs, indices or módulos — staff, floor area, power rating, tables — instead of the real profit.
Article 31 of the Personal Income Tax Act governs it, developed each year by a ministerial order on módulos listing the activities included and the amounts of each index. It applies only to the activities that order covers, and only while the exclusion limits are not exceeded.
The limits change every year
There are limits by volume of income, by volume of purchases and by invoicing to other business people or professionals. Their amounts have been carried over year by year through a transitional provision, so no figures are given here: you have to look them up in the current year's módulos order, on the Tax Agency's E-Office.
What changes compared with estimación directa
- The instalment payment is filed on form 131, not on the 130.
- For VAT, the simplified regime normally applies, which also works on módulos.
- Certain activities on módulos bear a withholding of 1% on their invoices to businesses.
The practical consequence
A bar that invoices 30% less in a given year pays the same, because the square metres, the electrical power rating and the tables have not changed. And the other way round: an exceptional year does not translate into more tax. The regime rewards efficiency and punishes a fall in sales.
The mistake that comes up most
Thinking that on módulos you do not have to keep invoices. You have to keep the invoices issued and received, numbered by date, and keep the capital goods record book if anything is being depreciated. The fact that your income does not depend on them does not mean you do not need them.
Where this carries on in Cairos: Módulos and the hospitality trade.
Terms that go with this one
Almost no tax concept makes sense on its own. These three are the ones that most often turn up beside it.
Estimación directa
The IRPF regime in which the income from the activity is worked out by deducting real deductible expenses from real income.
IRPF and withholdingsNet income
What is left after deducting the tax-deductible expenses from the gross income of the activity, before applying any reductions.
IRPF and withholdingsIRPF withholding
The amount the payer holds back from an invoice or a salary and pays over to Hacienda on account of the IRPF of whoever is being paid.
This, handled without thinking about it
Cairos keeps the invoices, the record books and Hacienda's forms from the same data, so the theory on this page turns into boxes that are already filled in.
No card and no minimum term.