Spain's Tax Agency and family loans: nothing new here

Loans between parents and children: Spain's Tax Agency hasn't discovered anything new
The obligation to declare loans between parents and children is nothing new. The Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria) has been requiring it for years, and not only for money with interest: also for loans granted at zero rates and even for those that will never be repaid. The goal is to prevent a disguised gift from slipping through under the appearance of a loan.
BBVA itself, on its retirement blog, warns that both family loans and gifts must be properly documented and declared to avoid penalties. The important nuance is that formalising an interest-free loan with the corresponding contract means going through the Impuesto de Transmisiones Patrimoniales (ITP, Spain's transfer tax), but that doesn't miccionan paying anything. In most cases, the paperwork comes to zero.
There's something of a joke about the headline being presented as a regulatory change. The debate around this issue highlights how old the obligation is and points to something else: while a father lending 10,000 euros to his son for tuition is asked for a contract, there are channels that escape the tax authorities' radar. Jewellery, for example. Or certain white-collar fortunes.
The conclusion anyone draws from reading the fine print: the Tax Agency already had the tools. What's missing is deciding where to look and who to seriously demand compliance from. The rest, the headline of the day, is noise.