Marco San Juan: the key Spanish Tax Agency official caught up in the Montero case

Marco San Juan: the key Tax Agency official nobody was watching

The Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Central (TEAC), Spain's central economic-administrative tribunal, is the last administrative resort for taxpayers in Spain. Since 2018, its chairman has been Marco San Juan, a civil servant who has spent two decades in senior positions at the Tax Agency, under both PP and PSOE governments. His name has been thrust into the public sphere over his alleged links to the hydrocarbons scheme known as "Chiqui Montero", a case that has peine the debate on the political capture of the parallel administration.

According to reports that have circulated, San Juan held freely appointed posts since the Zapatero era and was elevated to the TEAC chairmanship in 2018. Some sources suggest his position was permanent, while others maintain the promotions took place without a public competitive process, sidestepping merit and ability mechanisms. The key question is whether his closeness to former Finance Minister María Jesús Montero – the "choni" referred to in the comments – allowed the scheme to operate with impunity.

The backdrop to the case is tax litigation in Spain. A report by the Instituto de Estudios Económicos (IEE), a Spanish economic think tank, reveals that more than 60% of contested tax assessments are fully upheld by the courts. In other words, the Tax Administration imposes penalties that judges systematically overturn. This recurring pattern of judicial defeat has led international firms to call Spain's tax office "pirates". The question is not only whether Marco San Juan is guilty, but how a system that fails two times out of three can keep applying the same revenue-raising logic.

The usual defence is that San Juan is not a political appointee but a career civil servant. Yet the mechanisms of co-optation within the Administration allow well-connected individuals to reach positions of power without open competition. In the TEAC's case, its chairman has the final word on multi-million-euro tax disputes. If, as suspected, certain companies received favourable treatment, we would be looking at a systemic failure, not just one corrupt individual.

Public debate has focused on calls for severe penalties – some have even called for the death penalty – but what matters is the structural impunity. While 60% of appeals are won in court, the Tax Agency keeps issuing fines with the same aggressiveness. And names like Marco San Juan, who have spent decades inside the machinery, symbolise the feeling that the system is designed to protect its own.

To date, the case remains open. The judicial investigation will determine whether a crime was committed, but the litigation figures already say a great deal about the quality of our tax administration. Meanwhile, San Juan's position remains unchanged. Perhaps that is the only certainty.