Closing the quarter with no surprises

Before you look at any form

Five checks on what you have recorded. If any of them fails, the form will come out wrong however well you calculate it.

1. Are all the invoices issued? Check whether there are accepted quotes or delivered delivery notes that never got invoiced. That is work done that is not in the quarter.
2. Are there any documents in draft? An invoice in draft does not count. If it was ready and never got issued, issue it; if it was no good, delete it.
3. Is the numbering sequential and without gaps? A gap is the first thing looked at in a check.
4. Are all the expenses there, with their invoice? Especially the last month's, which are the ones that stay in your wallet.
5. Are there expenses without a complete invoice? Those give no right to deduct VAT. Better to spot it now than when the assessment arrives.

VAT, box by box

With the data inside, the 303 is a subtraction. What has to be checked is what slips in round the edges:

• Output VAT, split by rate. If you sell at 21% and at 10%, each one goes into its own box.
• Reverse-charge transactions, which go into two boxes at once: you charge the VAT to yourself and deduct it.
• Intra-Community acquisitions, which work the same way.
• The prorrata, if you have both exempt and taxable income. A provisional percentage applies during the year; in the fourth quarter it has to be adjusted against the real figures.
• Capital goods, if you bought something substantial and your prorrata has changed.
• The credit to carry forward that you had been bringing along from previous quarters.

IRPF, if it applies to you

Before you calculate anything, the prior question: do you have to file the 130? If you are a professional and at least 70% of your income in the previous calendar year had withholding applied, you do not. The wording is «al menos» and not «más de» — at least, not more than: at exactly 70.00% you are already out. That is what article 109.3 of the IRPF Regulations says.

If it does apply to you, three things almost everybody leaves out:

• It is cumulative, not quarterly: it is worked out on the whole year's profit to date, and what you paid earlier is deducted.
• Take off the depreciation on your fixed assets, for the part accumulated so far this year. It is not just for the annual income tax return in June.
• And the gastos de difícil justificación, the extra 5% capped at €2,000 a year, if you are on estimación directa simplificada.

That pair of lines can change the quarter's payment by several hundred euros.

The ones people forget

• 111, if you have paid wages or professionals' invoices with a withholding. And yes: even if you have no employees.
• 115, if you rent premises and apply a withholding on the rent.
• 349, if you have carried out any transaction with a company in another European Union country. It includes the services you buy, not only what you sell.

And the detail that costs money

If you are going to pay by direct debit, the direct debit deadline ends five days before the filing one. Leave the 303 until the 19th and you can no longer pay it that way: you have to get an NRC from the bank and pay through that.

It is the most common slip of the quarter and the easiest to avoid: the date to put in your calendar is the direct debit one, not the filing one.

After filing

• Keep the filing receipt, with its secure verification code.
• Write the result down: if there is a credit left to carry forward, you will need it next quarter.
• And if you got it wrong, watch out, because this changed: on the 303 — since the third quarter of 2024 — and on the annual income tax return — since the 2024 tax year — the mistake is corrected by filing a corrective self-assessment, which is a box on the form itself and works whether the error was in Hacienda's favour or against you. It replaces the old two-route system. Where that system has not arrived yet, the usual still applies: a supplementary return if the error was in Hacienda's favour and a request for correction if it was against you. The sooner, the smaller the surcharge.

Filing late on your own initiative, before anyone asks you to, works out much cheaper than waiting for it to be spotted. If the deadline has gone by, file it anyway.