Spanish Tax Agency: doubts over your 2025 income tax draft return
Is your 2025 income tax (IRPF) draft return missing your employment income? We explain your obligations and how to amend it to avoid penalties from Spain's tax office.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Your employment income is missing from the 2025 IRPF draft return: what should you do?
During the 2025 income tax filing season, more than one taxpayer has had a scare when opening the draft return from the Tax Agency and finding that key income is missing. That was the case of a worker who was only employed for two months before an unfair dismissal, claimed unemployment benefits for the rest of the year and, on reviewing the draft, found that his salary for those two months did not appear. The severance pay, correctly exempt, was indeed absent, but missing employment income is an error worth correcting.
Are you required to file if you have had two payers?
The obligation to file a return depends on total income and the number of payers. With two payers (employer and SEPE, Spain's public employment service), if the second payer paid you more than 1,500 euros and your total income exceeds 15,876 euros, you must file. But even if you are below that threshold, it may be worth filing to recover over-withheld tax. In this worker's case, having received both salary and unemployment benefits, he most likely has to file, even if the draft return shows only a trivial refund.
What to do if the draft return does not include your income?
If employment income is missing from the draft, the most likely cause is that the employer failed to file form 190 or filed it with errors. You should not accept the draft as it stands, because the Tax Agency can come after you in the future with interest and penalties. The most common advice is to amend the draft to manually add the missing income and the corresponding withholdings. Severance pay for unfair dismissal is exempt up to the legal limit, but salary is taxed in full.
Watch out for back pay from previous years
Another recurring case is salary arrears paid in 2025 but attributable to earlier tax years, such as 2023. In these cases it is not enough to declare them in the year of payment; you must file a supplementary return for the year they belong to. The Tax Agency allows this through Renta Web, although the process can be cumbersome if you do not know the exact boxes. What matters is regularising the situation before the Tax Agency spots the discrepancy on its own.
The final dilemma is whether to accept the draft as it is or amend it. Those who take the relaxed view argue that, if the amount is small, the Tax Agency is unlikely to chase it. But the more cautious point out that the tax office can look back up to four years and that a letter with interest and penalties can wipe out the savings achieved. The decision, as always, lies between peace of mind and the risk of a nasty surprise later on.
Related discussions in the forum
During the 2025 income tax filing season, more than one taxpayer has had a scare when opening the draft return from the Tax Agency and finding that key income is missing. That was the case of a worker who was only employed for two months before an unfair dismissal, claimed unemployment benefits for the rest of the year and, on reviewing the draft, found that his salary for those two months did not appear. The severance pay, correctly exempt, was indeed absent, but missing employment income is an error worth correcting.
Are you required to file if you have had two payers?
The obligation to file a return depends on total income and the number of payers. With two payers (employer and SEPE, Spain's public employment service), if the second payer paid you more than 1,500 euros and your total income exceeds 15,876 euros, you must file. But even if you are below that threshold, it may be worth filing to recover over-withheld tax. In this worker's case, having received both salary and unemployment benefits, he most likely has to file, even if the draft return shows only a trivial refund.
What to do if the draft return does not include your income?
If employment income is missing from the draft, the most likely cause is that the employer failed to file form 190 or filed it with errors. You should not accept the draft as it stands, because the Tax Agency can come after you in the future with interest and penalties. The most common advice is to amend the draft to manually add the missing income and the corresponding withholdings. Severance pay for unfair dismissal is exempt up to the legal limit, but salary is taxed in full.
Watch out for back pay from previous years
Another recurring case is salary arrears paid in 2025 but attributable to earlier tax years, such as 2023. In these cases it is not enough to declare them in the year of payment; you must file a supplementary return for the year they belong to. The Tax Agency allows this through Renta Web, although the process can be cumbersome if you do not know the exact boxes. What matters is regularising the situation before the Tax Agency spots the discrepancy on its own.
The final dilemma is whether to accept the draft as it is or amend it. Those who take the relaxed view argue that, if the amount is small, the Tax Agency is unlikely to chase it. But the more cautious point out that the tax office can look back up to four years and that a letter with interest and penalties can wipe out the savings achieved. The decision, as always, lies between peace of mind and the risk of a nasty surprise later on.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (27 replies).
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