The tax office raises the value of the artworks you inherited

The case, in five lines

What is brought

Defence against the review of the value of artworks in the Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones (inheritance and gift tax): submissions on the proposed valuation, an appeal for reconsideration (recurso de reposición) or an economic-administrative claim (reclamación económico-administrativa) against the supplementary assessment, a tasación pericial contradictoria (contradictory expert appraisal), or the reservation of the right to request it, backed by an art expert's valuation report, and judicial review (recurso contencioso-administrativo).

Before which court

The tax office of the autonomous community that reviewed the value, before which the appeal for reconsideration and the contradictory expert appraisal are lodged. Then the TEAR (Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Regional, the regional tax tribunal) or, if the amount exceeds 150,000 euros (1,800,000 where tax bases or valuations are disputed), directly the TEAC (Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Central, the central tax tribunal). In court, the Sala de lo Contencioso-Administrativo (the administrative chamber) of the Tribunal Superior de Justicia (the regional High Court), also where the TEAC decided, because inheritance and gift tax is a tax ceded to the regions (article 10.1.e LJCA).

Deadline

One month from the day after notification of the assessment to lodge an appeal or claim (articles 223.1 and 235.1 LGT, the General Tax Act) and, within that month, to request the contradictory expert appraisal, which suspends that deadline (article 135.1 LGT). In the appraisal, ten days to appoint an expert and one month for the expert's valuation report (article 161 RGAT, the Tax Management and Inspection Regulations); as article 98 of the Inheritance and Gift Tax Regulations gives fifteen days for the report, it is safest to file it within fifteen. Two months for judicial review. The autonomous community can assess for four years from the end of the filing period (article 66 LGT).

Who can bring it

Each heir or donee notified of their own assessment, who is the person entitled to challenge it and to request the contradictory expert appraisal. Each has their own deadline: where the law extends a reviewed value to other taxpayers, the value resulting from one person's challenge or appraisal applies to the others (article 134.4 and 134.5 LGT), but the prudent course is for all of them to act in time and with the same evidence.

Financial risk

If you lose, the supplementary tax with late payment interest and, where applicable, a penalty, which article 18.4 LISD (the Inheritance and Gift Tax Act) rules out on the higher value if you declared under the rules of the Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio (wealth tax). In the contradictory expert appraisal, you pay for the third expert if their valuation departs by more than 20 per cent from the declared value. The value finally set will be your acquisition value for IRPF (personal income tax) purposes (article 36 LIRPF) and may carry over into wealth tax (article 18.3 LISD). In court proceedings costs may be awarded against you.

Who raises the value and by what means

The Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones (inheritance and gift tax) is managed by the autonomous community, and it is the community's tax office that reviews what you declared. The tax base is market value, meaning the most likely price at which the work could be sold between independent parties (article 9.2 LISD, the Inheritance and Gift Tax Act). In the return you must state the value you give each asset, and if yours is higher than the reviewed value, yours prevails (article 18.2 LISD).

To review it, article 18.1 LISD refers to the methods in article 57 LGT (the General Tax Act). For artworks, three carry the most weight: an opinion by the authority's experts, the value given in insurance policies and the price declared in other transfers of the same asset within the year after the tax became due (article 158.4 RGAT, the Tax Management and Inspection Regulations). What almost nobody knows is that the policy your father took out to insure the collection can be turned against you: the sum insured is, by law, a means of review.

The review may come as a procedure of its own or within a limited review (comprobación limitada) or an inspection, in which case the maximum time limit of the procedure in which it is carried out applies (article 159.3 RGAT); if it is a procedure of its own, the limit in article 104 LGT applies, to which article 134.1 LGT refers. The community has four years to assess from the end of the filing period (article 66 LGT). The valuation cannot be challenged on its own: it is disputed when challenging the assessment or through the contradictory expert appraisal (article 134.3 LGT).

Before reviewing, the community must justify why

This is the argument that has changed most in the last year. The Tribunal Supremo (Spain's Supreme Court), in STS 1482/2025 of 19 November 2025 (appeal 113/2024) and STS 124/2026 of 10 February 2026 (appeal 3646/2024), requires the tax authority to justify the need to review the declared value before starting the review, not afterwards. Opening the procedure without giving any prior reason is no longer a mere formal defect.

The Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Central (TEAC, the central tax tribunal) adopted that criterion as doctrine, changing its previous view, in decision RG 8883/2024 of 28 April 2026: if the authority did not give reasons before reviewing, the assessment is annulled without the case being sent back, that is, without a further chance to redo the valuation. That decision was given for the Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales (transfer tax), but it rests on article 134 LGT, which applies equally to inheritance tax: applying it to an inheritance is a reasonable inference that has to be argued, not an automatic outcome.

That is why the first thing we do is request the complete file and read the notice opening the review. If it merely says that "the declared value is being checked", with no specific reason, that defect is argued before any figure. And even where a justification exists, the proposed valuation must state its reasons, setting out the methods and criteria used (article 134.3 LGT) and, in an expert opinion, the specific facts that justify changing the value (article 160.3.c RGAT).

The expert's opinion: qualifications, seeing the work and specific facts

The authority's expert must hold qualifications that are sufficient and appropriate to the asset (article 158.3 RGAT) and must inspect it in person where it is a unique asset, such as an oil painting or a sculpture, or one whose relevant features cannot be obtained from reliable documentary sources (article 160.2 RGAT). An opinion written at a desk from the photographs in the inventory is open to challenge. Bear in mind, however, that if you refuse to show the work, the authority is released from that requirement.

The most common defect is extrapolation. The expert takes hammer prices for other works by the same artist and applies them to yours without adjusting for what really drives the price: period, size, technique, condition, attribution, provenance and whether the work has been on the market before. Or the expert takes the sum insured under the policy, which usually reflects a replacement value rather than the most likely sale price under article 9.2 LISD. Every jump that is not explained by specific facts is a ground for challenge.

Two details change the figure. If the works were community property (gananciales), only half of them forms part of the estate, and the Dirección General de Tributos (DGT, the directorate general that issues binding tax rulings) applies the comparison between experts to the share of the asset included in the estate. And if there are several heirs, each receives their own assessment: where the law extends a reviewed value to other taxpayers, the value resulting from one person's challenge or appraisal applies to the others (article 134.4 and 134.5 LGT), so it pays to act in a coordinated way.

The contradictory expert appraisal, step by step

It is the specific means of correcting the figure (articles 57.2 and 135 LGT). It is requested within the period for the first appeal or claim against the assessment, and filing it suspends enforcement of the assessment, the deadline for challenging it and also the time limit of the penalty procedure (article 135.1 LGT). If the notification does not properly explain why the value has been raised, several regional laws on ceded taxes allow you to raise that in an appeal for reconsideration or a claim and to reserve the right to the appraisal, whose deadline then runs from the date that decision becomes final.

The sequence is strict (articles 161 and 162 RGAT). If the value did not already come from an expert opinion, an expert for the authority prepares a valuation report within fifteen days. You then have ten days to appoint an appropriately qualified expert, who has one month to deliver a reasoned valuation report, although the Inheritance and Gift Tax Regulations give fifteen days for each step (article 98): to be safe, appoint the expert within ten days and file the report within fifteen; if either deadline is missed, you are deemed to have withdrawn, the assessment is based on the reviewed value and the appraisal cannot be requested again. If the difference between the two experts does not exceed 120,000 euros or 10 per cent of your expert's valuation, your expert's figure is used (article 135.2 LGT).

If it does, a third expert is chosen by lot from the lists of the professional associations, and may require the fees to be deposited within ten days: the party that does not deposit accepts the other party's valuation. The third expert's valuation must fall between the declared and the reviewed value (article 135.4 LGT), and you pay the cost if it departs by more than 20 per cent from the value you declared. With 186,000 euros declared, any figure from the third expert above 223,200 passes that bill to you: under-declaring also has a price here. Once the appraisal ends, the community has one month to issue the assessment; if it is late, interest stops running (article 162.5 RGAT).

Appeal, the deciding body and collection while the dispute lasts

Against the supplementary assessment you have one month from the day after notification to lodge an appeal for reconsideration (recurso de reposición) with the office itself or an economic-administrative claim, not both at once (articles 223.1 and 235.1 LGT). The route must be chosen with care: the contradictory expert appraisal only serves to dispute the technical quantification, and if your grounds go further (no prior justification, an expert who did not see the work, insufficient reasons) they must be raised in the appeal; the regulations allow you to state expressly that you are challenging the act and not requesting the appraisal (article 161.1 RGAT).

The claim is decided by the TEAR (Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Regional, the regional tax tribunal) or, if the amount exceeds 150,000 euros (1,800,000 where tax bases or valuations are disputed), directly by the TEAC, and the tribunal has one year to decide. If the TEAR decided a claim above those amounts, its decision is first appealed to the TEAC (recurso de alzada) within one month. Against a TEAR decision that ends the administrative route you have two months to seek judicial review before the Tribunal Superior de Justicia (the regional High Court); if the TEAC decided, its notice of available appeals governs, and for a ceded tax such as inheritance tax it also leads to the Tribunal Superior de Justicia (article 10.1 LJCA, the Administrative Jurisdiction Act). The attempt at negotiation under Organic Law 1/2025 is not required, and in court we act with a procurador (court representative).

Challenging the assessment does not stop collection on its own: suspension is automatic if the debt is secured by a deposit, a bank guarantee or surety insurance, and the contradictory expert appraisal suspends enforcement by itself. If you neither pay nor obtain suspension, the debt may end in your assets being seized, as explained in "The Spanish tax office froze your bank account without warning". The penalty is handled separately and is suspended without security; moreover, article 18.4 LISD bars penalising the tax due on the higher value if you followed the rules of the Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio (wealth tax), which for art is market value (article 19 LIP, the Wealth Tax Act). This is covered in more depth in "Penalised for a mistake: annulling the penalty for lack of fault".

What nobody tells you: today's figure shapes your income tax and wealth tax

The value set for inheritance tax will be your acquisition value when you sell the work, without exceeding market value (article 36 LIRPF, the Personal Income Tax Act), and the gain will go to the savings base of IRPF (personal income tax) (article 46.b LIRPF). Fighting for a very low value makes the inheritance cheaper and the future sale dearer. If you plan to sell, compare the inheritance tax rate your community applies with the savings rate: sometimes the sensible course is to dispute only the unjustified excess. And the inheritance tax return is the evidence of title that, on the day of the sale, protects you against the price being treated as an unexplained gain, which would go to the general base (article 39 LIRPF).

The new value also travels into the Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio (wealth tax): if it exceeds the value that tax's own rule would give, it takes effect for the current year and the following ones (article 18.3 LISD). A work that was exempt because it was worth less than the thresholds in Royal Decree 111/1986, for example 90,151.82 euros for paintings less than a hundred years old, may cease to be exempt (article 4.Tres LIP). In an inheritance by the spouse, descendants or adopted children, assets under sections One, Two and Three of article 4 LIP that form part of the Spanish historic heritage or that of your autonomous community carry a state reduction of 95 per cent, subject to keeping them for ten years (article 20.2.c LISD). If the work is registered as a Bien de Interés Cultural (a listed cultural asset) or in the Inventario General (the general inventory of movable cultural property), or classified and registered as part of your autonomous community's historic heritage, raising the figure costs little in inheritance tax and improves your acquisition value; if it qualifies only under section Three, because it is worth less than the thresholds, the new value may take it out of that section and out of the reduction. This is developed in "The tax office demands wealth tax or the large fortunes tax on your artworks".

And if you sell: doing so within the year after the tax became due, above the declared value, hands the community a ready-made means of review (article 158.4 RGAT). The gallery or auction house that resells is taxed for VAT on its margin (articles 135 and 136 LIVA, the VAT Act); the 10 per cent rate in article 91 is reserved for the artist, the artist's successors in title, non-reseller businesses entitled to deduct all their input VAT and imports. If seventy years have not passed since the artist's death, each resale of 800 euros or more involving an art market professional triggers the artist's resale right: 4 per cent of the first 50,000 euros and decreasing bands, capped at 12,500 euros, paid by the seller and withheld by the professional (article 24 TRLPI, the consolidated Intellectual Property Act). If you would rather pay the tax with a registered work, see "You want to pay your taxes with artworks or historic assets".

How we run the case, step by step

1. 1

   Dating the notification and working out the deadlines

   We note the date on which the assessment was notified and its notice of available appeals: the month to challenge it and to request the contradictory expert appraisal runs from the following day. We also check whether the community issued the assessment within the procedure's maximum time limit (articles 104 and 134.1 LGT and 159 RGAT) and within the four years of article 66 LGT.

2. 2

   Requesting the file and reading the opening notice

   We request a full copy: the opening notice, the proposal, the expert opinion and the assessment. We look at whether the need to review was justified before the review began (STS 124/2026), whether the expert holds appropriate qualifications, saw the works and sets out specific facts (articles 158.3, 160.2 and 160.3.c RGAT).

3. 3

   Commissioning your own valuation, work by work

   We coordinate a reasoned valuation of each work with the art expert we work with, using comparables adjusted for period, size, condition and provenance. It is used to calculate whether the difference from the authority's expert falls within 120,000 euros and 10 per cent (article 135.2 LGT) and how great the risk is of having to pay for the third expert.

4. 4

   Choosing the route: appeal, appraisal or appeal with reservation

   If the file has defects of justification or reasoning, they are challenged first and, where your community's law provides for it, the right to the contradictory expert appraisal is reserved (article 135.1 LGT). If the dispute is only about the figure, the appraisal is requested within the month, which suspends the assessment and the deadline to challenge it.

5. 5

   Filing on your behalf and securing suspension

   We file the document with your signed authorisation, without asking for your digital certificate or your Cl@ve (the state electronic identification system), and request suspension with security if the appraisal does not already provide it. Any penalty is challenged separately on the basis of article 18.4 LISD and the lack of fault under article 179.2.d) LGT.

6. 6

   Seeing it through and planning what comes next

   If the TEAR or the TEAC dismisses the claim, the case goes within two months to the Tribunal Superior de Justicia (the regional High Court), with a procurador (court representative). Once the value is set, we review its effect on wealth tax (article 18.3 LISD), the holding period for the 95 per cent reduction if you applied it and the acquisition value for a future sale (article 36 LIRPF).

The law that applies

• Arts. 57, 134 y 135 LGT. List the methods for reviewing values, including expert opinions, insurance policies and other transfers of the same asset; require a reasoned proposed valuation that cannot be challenged on its own; and govern the contradictory expert appraisal: the period of the first appeal, its suspensive effect, the 120,000 euro and 10 per cent rule, the third expert and who pays for it. BOE-A-2003-23186
• Arts. 158, 160, 161 y 162 RGAT. Require the authority's expert to hold appropriate qualifications, to inspect unique assets in person and to set out the specific facts justifying a change of value; and set the deadlines of the contradictory expert appraisal (ten days to appoint an expert, one month for the valuation report) and the ways in which it ends. BOE-A-2007-15984
• Arts. 9 y 18 LISD. Take market value, the most likely price between independent parties, as the tax base; allow it to be reviewed by the methods in article 57 LGT; give priority to the declared value if higher; carry the new value over into wealth tax; and exclude a penalty on the higher value if the return followed that tax's rules. BOE-A-1987-28141
• Art. 20.2.c) y 20.7 LISD. Reduce by 95 per cent the value of assets of the Spanish or regional historic heritage inherited by the spouse, descendants or adopted children and, in gifts, where the donor is 65 or over or has a permanent absolute incapacity or severe disability, subject to a ten-year holding period; if it is breached, the tax saved is paid with late payment interest. BOE-A-1987-28141
• Arts. 4 y 19 LIP. Exempt assets registered as a Bien de Interés Cultural or in the Inventario General, works of art worth less than the thresholds set under Law 16/1985, those lent on permanent deposit to museums for at least three years and an artist's own work; and count the rest at market value on the date the tax falls due. BOE-A-1991-14392
• Arts. 36, 39 y 46 LIRPF. Take as the acquisition value of inherited assets the value resulting from the inheritance tax rules, without exceeding market value; place the gain on a sale in the savings base; and bring into the general base, as an unexplained gain, assets whose ownership does not match the declared income or wealth. BOE-A-2006-20764
• Art. 24 TRLPI. Grants the artist and the artist's successors in title, until seventy years after death, a share of the price of resales of 800 euros or more involving an art market professional: 4 per cent of the first 50,000 euros and decreasing bands, capped at 12,500 euros; the professional notifies the resale and withholds the amount. BOE-A-1996-8930
• Arts. 91, 135 y 136 LIVA. Apply the special scheme for second-hand goods and works of art, which taxes the margin, to resellers buying from private individuals, including auction houses selling in their own name on commission; and reserve the 10 per cent rate for imports and for supplies by the artist, the artist's successors in title and non-reseller businesses entitled to deduct all their input VAT. BOE-A-1992-28740

Each article checked against the consolidated text published in the BOE (the Spanish official gazette).

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