In two recent rulings, the Supreme Court has found against the arguments put forward by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia. The first is a ruling dated 24 June last, which rejects the call to render null and void Royal Decree 515/2013 of 5 July regulating the criteria and procedures for determining and passing on liabilities for failure to comply with EU law, given that the wording of the regulatory provisions fail to include a clause expressly preserving the unique nature of the provincial of the bodies of provincial law applicable in the historical territories of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country for the purposes of application of Public General Act [Ley Orgánica] 2/2012 of 27 April on Budgetary Stability and Financial Sustainability. The second ruling, brought in on 29 June, rejects the contention that provincial tax authorities have the authority to issue demands for information outside their territories, thus confirming the criterion applied by the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country in its ruling dated 3 February 2015.
Moreover, the court continues to issue rulings that confirm the doctrine of instance concerning the status of the General Taxation Act [Ley General Tributaria] as a rule of common procedure, opening the way to declaring null and void actions to review earnings from economic activities taken under procedures commencing with self-assessment, maintaining the inappropriateness of the said procedure and the need to use the restricted checking procedure (Supreme Court ruling dated 29 June and High Court of Justice of the Basque Country ruling of 6 October 2016).
