Doing Business 2015 Spain Economy Profile 2015 Spain Doing Business 2015 Spain 2 2014 The International Bank for reconstruction and development/The World bank 1818 H Street NW, WASHINGTON DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www. worldbank. org All rights reserved. 1 2 3 4 17 16 15 14 This work is a product of the staff of The World bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World bank, its Board of Executive directors, or the governments they represent. The World bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. 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Doing Business 2015 Spain 3 CONTENTS Introduction...4 The business environment...6 Starting a business...16 Dealing with construction permits...23 Getting electricity...30 Registering property...36 Getting credit...43 Protecting minority investors...49 Paying taxes...59 Trading across borders...64 Enforcing contracts...69 Resolving insolvency...76 Labor market regulation...81 Distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking...88 Resources on the Doing Business website...91 Doing Business 2015 Spain 4 INTRODUCTION Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. The data set covers 47 economies in Sub-saharan africa, 32 in Latin america and the Caribbean, 25 in East asia and the Pacific, 26 in Eastern europe and Central asia, 20 in the middle East and North africa and 8 in South Asia as well as 31 OECD high-income economies. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Spain. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2014 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January December 2013). The Doing Business methodology has limitations. Other areas important to business such as an economy's proximity to large markets, the quality of its infrastructure services (other than those related to trading across borders and getting electricity), the security of property from theft and looting, the transparency of government procurement, macroeconomic conditions or the underlying strength of institutions are studied not directly by Doing Business. The indicators refer to a specific type of business, generally a local limited liability company operating in the largest business city. Because standard assumptions are used in the data collection, comparisons and benchmarks are valid across economies. The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform. More information is available in the full report. Doing Business 2015 presents the indicators, analyzes their relationship with economic outcomes and presents business regulatory reforms. The data, along with information on ordering Doing Business 2015, are available on the Doing Business website at http://www. doingbusiness. org. Doing Business 2015 Spain 5 CHANGES IN DOING BUSINESS 2015 As part of a 2-year update in methodology, Doing Business 2015 incorporates 7 important changes. First, the ease of doing business ranking as well as all topic-level rankings are computed now on the basis of distance to frontier scores (see the chapter on the distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking). Second, for the 11 economies with a population of more than 100 million, data for a second city have been added to the data set and the ranking calculation. These economies are Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Russian Federation and the United states. Third, for getting credit, the methodology has been revised for both the strength of legal rights index and the depth of credit information index. The number of points has been increased in both indices, from 10 to 12 for the strength of legal rights index and from 6 to 8 for the depth of credit information index. In addition only credit bureaus and registries that cover at least 5%of the adult population can receive a score on the depth of credit information index. Fourth, the name of the protecting investors indicator set has been changed to protecting minority investors to better reflect its scope and the scope of the indicator set has been expanded to include shareholders'rights in corporate governance beyond related-party transactions. Fifth, the resolving insolvency indicator set has been expanded to include an index measuring the strength of the legal framework for insolvency. Sixth, the calculation of the distance to frontier score for paying taxes has been changed. The total tax rate component now enters the score in a nonlinear fashion in an approach different from that used for all other indicators (see the chapter on the distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking). Finally, the name of the employing workers indicator set has been changed to labor market regulation, and the scope of this indicator set has also been changed. The indicators now focus on labor market regulation applying to the retail sector rather than the manufacturing sector, and their coverage has been expanded to include regulations on labor disputes and on benefits provided to workers. The labor market regulation indicators continue to be excluded from the aggregate distance to frontier score and ranking on the ease of doing business. Beyond these changes there are 3 other updates in methodology. For paying taxes the financial statement variables have been updated to be proportional to 2012 income per capita; previously they were proportional to 2005 income per capita. For enforcing contracts, the value of the claim is now set at twice the income per capita or $5, 000, whichever is greater. For dealing with construction permits, the cost of construction is now set at 50 times income per capita (before, the cost was assessed by the Doing Business respondents). In addition, this indicator set no longer includes the procedures for obtaining a landline telephone connection. For more details on the changes, see the What is changing in Doing Business? chapter starting on page 24 of the Doing Business 2015 report. For more details on the data and methodology, please see the Data Notes chapter starting on page 114 of the Doing Business 2015 report. For more details on the distance to frontier metric, please see the Distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking chapter in this profile. Doing Business 2015 Spain 6 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT For policy makers trying to improve their economy's regulatory environment for business, a good place to start is to find out how it compares with the regulatory environment in other economies. Doing Business provides an aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business based on indicator sets that measure and benchmark regulations applying to domestic small to medium-size businesses through their life cycle. Economies are ranked from 1 to 189 by the ease of doing business ranking. This year's report presents results for 2 aggregate measures: the distance to frontier score and the ease of doing business ranking. The ranking of economies is determined by sorting the aggregate distance to frontier (DTF) scores. The distance to frontier score benchmarks economies with respect to regulatory practice, showing the absolute distance to the best performance in each Doing Business indicator. An economy's distance to frontier score is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the worst performance and 100 the frontier. See the chapter on the distance to frontier and ease of doing business). The 10 topics included in the ranking in Doing Business 2015: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. The labor market regulation indicators (formerly employing workers) are included not in this year's aggregate ease of doing business ranking, but the data are presented in this year's economy profile. The aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business benchmarks each economy's performance on the indicators against that of all other economies in the Doing Business sample (figure 1. 1) . While this ranking tells much about the business environment in an economy, it does not tell the whole story. The ranking on the ease of doing business, and the underlying indicators, do not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors or that affect the competitiveness of the economy. Still, a high ranking does mean that the government has created a regulatory environment conducive to operating a business. ECONOMY OVERVIEW Region: OECD high income Income category: High income Population: 46,647, 421 GNI per capita (US$: 29,180 DB2015 rank: 33 DB2014 rank: 32*Change in rank: -1 DB 2015 DTF: 73.17 DB 2014 DTF: 72.24 Change in DTF: 0. 93*DB2014 ranking shown is not last year's published ranking but a comparable ranking for DB2014 that captures the effects of such factors as data corrections and the changes in methodology. See the data notes starting on page 114 of the Doing Business 2015 report for sources and definitions. Doing Business 2015 Spain THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Figure 1. 1 Where economies stand in the global ranking on the ease of doing business Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT For policy makers, knowing where their economy stands in the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business is useful. Also useful is to know how it ranks relative to comparator economies and relative to the regional average (figure 1. 2). The economy's rankings (figure 1. 3) and distance to frontier scores (figure 1. 4) on the topics included in the ease of doing business ranking provide another perspective. Figure 1. 2 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of doing business Note: The rankings are benchmarked to June 2014 and based on the average of each economy's distance to frontier (DTF) scores for the 10 topics included in this year's aggregate ranking. The distance to frontier score benchmarks economies with respect to regulatory practice, showing the absolute distance to the best performance in each Doing Business indicator. An economy's distance to frontier score is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the worst performance and 100 the frontier. For the economies for which the data cover 2 cities, scores are weighted a population average for the 2 cities. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 9 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Figure 1. 3 Rankings on Doing Business topics-Spain (Scale: Rank 189 center, Rank 1 outer edge) Figure 1. 4 Distance to frontier scores on Doing Business topics-Spain (Scale: Score 0 center, Score 100 outer edge) Note: The rankings are benchmarked to June 2014 and based on the average of each economy's distance to frontier (DTF) scores for the 10 topics included in this year's aggregate ranking. The distance to frontier score benchmarks economies with respect to regulatory practice, showing the absolute distance to the best performance in each Doing Business indicator. An economy's distance to frontier score is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the worst performance and 100 the frontier. For the economies for which the data cover 2 cities, scores are weighted a population average for the 2 cities. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 10 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTJUST as the overall ranking on the ease of doing business tells only part of the story, so do changes in that ranking. Yearly movements in rankings can provide some indication of changes in an economy's regulatory environment for firms, but they are always relative. Moreover, year-to-year changes in the overall rankings do not reflect how the business regulatory environment in an economy has changed over time or how it has changed in different areas. To aid in assessing such changes, Doing Business introduced the distance to frontier score. This measure shows how far on average an economy is from the best performance achieved by any economy on each Doing Business indicator Comparing the measure for an economy at 2 points in time allows users to assess how much the economy's regulatory environment as measured by Doing Business has changed over time how far it has moved toward (or away from) the most efficient practices and strongest regulations in areas covered by Doing Business (figure 1. 5). Figure 1. 5 How far has Spain come in the areas measured by Doing Business? Note: The distance to frontier score shows how far on average an economy is from the best performance achieved by any economy on each Doing Business indicator since 2010, except for getting credit, paying taxes, protecting minority investors and resolving insolvency which had methodology changes in 2014 and thus are only comparable to 2013. The measure is normalized to range between 0 and 100, with 100 representing the best performance (the frontier). See the data notes starting on page 114 of the Doing Business 2015 report for more details on the distance to frontier score. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 11 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTTHE absolute values of the indicators tell another part of the story (table 1. 1). The indicators, on their own or in comparison with the indicators of a good practice economy or those of comparator economies in the region, may reveal bottlenecks reflected in large numbers of procedures, long delays or high costs. Or they may reveal unexpected strengths in an area of business regulation such as a regulatory process that can be completed with a small number of procedures in a few days and at a low cost. Comparison of the economy's indicators today with those in the previous year may show where substantial bottlenecks persist and where they are diminishing. Table 1 1 Summary of Doing Business indicators for Spain Indicator Spain DB2015 Spain DB2014 France DB2015 Germany DB2015 Italy DB2015 Portugal DB2015 Switzerland DB2015 United kingdom DB2015 Best performer globally DB2015 Starting a Business (rank) 74 115 28 114 46 10 69 45 New zealand (1) Starting a Business (DTF Score) 88.08 79.68 93.00 81.38 91.22 96.27 88.42 91.23 New zealand (99.96) Procedures (number) 6. 0 10.0 5. 0 9 . 0 5. 0 3. 0 6. 0 6. 0 New zealand (1. 0)* Time (days) 13.0 23.0 4. 5 14.5 5 . 0 2. 5 10.0 6. 0 New zealand (0. 5) Cost(%of income per capita) 4. 6 4. 7 0. 9 8. 8 14.1 2. 3 2. 0 0. 3 Slovenia (0. 0) Paid-in min. capital(%of income per capita) 13.8 13.4 0. 0 35.8 0. 0 0. 0 25.4 0. 0 112 Economies (0. 0)* Dealing with Construction Permits (rank) 105 104 86 8 116 58 45 17 Hong kong SAR, China (1) Dealing with Construction Permits (DTF Score) 69.18 69.24 73.14 87.42 67.35 77.31 78.50 85.06 Hong kong SAR, China (95.53) Doing Business 2015 Spain 12 Indicator Spain DB2015 Spain DB2014 France DB2015 Germany DB2015 Italy DB2015 Portugal DB2015 Switzerland DB2015 United kingdom DB2015 Best performer globally DB2015 Procedures (number) 7. 0 7 . 0 8. 0 8. 0 10 0 14.0 11.0 9. 0 Hong kong SAR, China (5. 0) Time (days) 229.0 229.0 183.0 96.0 233.0 113.0 154.0 105.0 Singapore (26.0) Cost(%of warehouse value) 5. 2 5. 2 4. 7 1. 1 3. 7 1. 4 0. 7 1. 2 Qatar (0. 0)* Getting Electricity (rank) 74 68 60 3 102 47 5 70 Korea, Rep. 1) Getting Electricity (DTF Score) 78.18 78.21 79.87 98.37 72.65 82.00 96.71 78.42 Korea, Rep. 99.83 ) Procedures (number) 5. 0 5. 0 5. 0 3. 0 5. 0 5. 0 3. 0 4. 0 12 Economies (3 . 0)* Time (days) 85.0 85.0 79.0 28.0 124.0 64.0 39.0 126.0 Korea, Rep. 18.0)* Cost(%of income per capita) 242.0 234.4 42.9 44.4 212.6 52.9 59.2 90.1 Japan (0. 0) Registering Property (rank) 66 71 126 89 41 25 16 68 Georgia (1) Registering Property (DTF Score) 73.57 71.28 59.36 67.78 79.44 83.67 88.71 72.55 Georgia (99.88 ) Procedures (number) 5. 0 5. 0 8. 0 5. 0 4. 0 1. 0 4. 0 6. 0 4 Economies (1. 0)* Time (days) 12.0 12.5 49.0 40.0 16.0 1. 0 16.0 21.5 3 Economies (1. 0)* Cost(%of property value) 6. 1 7 1 6. 1 6 . 7 4. 4 7. 3 0. 3 4. 6 4 Economies (0. 0)* Getting Credit (rank) 52 45 71 23 89 89 52 17 New zealand (1) Getting Credit (DTF Score) 60.00 60.00 50.00 70.00 45.00 45.00 60.00 75.00 New zealand (100 ) Strength of legal rights index (0-12) 5 5 4 6 2 2 6 7 3 Economies (12)* Doing Business 2015 Spain 13 Indicator Spain DB2015 Spain DB2014 France DB2015 Germany DB2015 Italy DB2015 Portugal DB2015 Switzerland DB2015 United kingdom DB2015 Best performer globally DB2015 Depth of credit information index (0-8) 7 7 6 8 7 7 6 8 23 Economies (8)* Credit registry coverage (%of adults) 50.0 51 9 44.5 1. 3 24.6 100.0 0. 0 0. 0 Portugal (100.0) Credit bureau coverage(%of adults) 15.3 15.6 0. 0 100.0 100.0 23.4 26.3 100.0 23 Economies (100.0)* Protecting Minority Investors (rank) 30 30 17 51 21 51 78 4 New zealand (1) Protecting Minority Investors (DTF Score) 64.17 64.17 67.50 59.17 66.67 59.17 55.00 78.33 New zealand (81.67) Extent of conflict of interest regulation index (0-10) 5. 3 5. 3 5. 7 5. 0 6. 0 6. 0 3. 3 8 . 3 Singapore (9. 3)* Extent of shareholder governance index (0-10) 7. 5 7. 5 7. 8 6. 8 7 3 5. 8 7. 7 7. 3 France (7. 8)* Strength of minority investor protection index (0-10) 6. 4 6 . 4 6. 8 5. 9 6. 7 5. 9 5. 5 7. 8 New zealand (8. 2) Paying Taxes (rank) 76 70 95 68 141 64 18 16 United arab emirates (1)* Paying Taxes (DTF Score) 75.25 76.00 72.12 77.02 62.13 77.84 89.05 90.52 United arab emirates (99.44)* Payments (number per year) 8. 0 8. 0 8. 0 9. 0 15.0 8. 0 19.0 8. 0 Hong kong SAR China (3. 0)* Time (hours per year) 167.0 167.0 137.0 218.0 269.0 275.0 63.0 110.0 Luxembourg (55.0) Trading Across Borders (rank) 30 29 10 18 37 29 22 15 Singapore (1) Trading Across Borders 84.68 84.77 90.18 87.67 83.44 85.20 86.10 88.32 Singapore (96.47) Doing Business 2015 Spain 14 Indicator Spain DB2015 Spain DB2014 France DB2015 Germany DB2015 Italy DB2015 Portugal DB2015 Switzerland DB2015 United kingdom DB2015 Best performer globally DB2015 (DTF Score) Documents to export (number) 4 4 2 4 3 4 3 4 Ireland (2)* Time to export (days) 10.0 10.0 10.0 9. 0 19.0 15.0 8. 0 8. 0 5 Economies (6. 0)* Cost to export (US$ per container) 1, 310.0 1 , 310.0 1, 335.0 1, 015.0 1, 195.0 780.0 1, 660.0 1, 005.0 Timor-Leste (410.0) Cost to export (deflated US$ per container) 1, 310.0 1, 318.5 1, 335.0 1, 015.0 1, 195.0 780.0 1, 660.0 1, 005.0 Documents to import (number) 4 4 2 4 3 4 4 4 Ireland (2)* Time to import (days) 9. 0 9. 0 11.0 7. 0 18.0 13.0 8. 0 6. 0 Singapore (4. 0) Cost to import (US$ per container) 1 400.0 1, 350.0 1, 445.0 1, 050.0 1, 145.0 925.0 1, 440.0 1, 050.0 Singapore (440.0) Cost to import (deflated US$ per container) 1, 400.0 1, 358.7 1, 445.0 1, 050.0 1, 145.0 925.0 1, 440.0 1, 050.0 Enforcing Contracts (rank) 69 70 10 13 147 27 22 36 Singapore (1) Enforcing Contracts (DTF Score) 62.65 62.65 77.67 76.74 45.61 69.65 72.20 68.08 Singapore (89.54 ) Time (days) 510.0 510.0 395.0 394.0 1 185.0 547.0 390.0 437.0 Singapore (150.0) Cost(%of claim) 18.5 18.5 17.4 14.4 23.1 13.8 24.0 39.9 Iceland (9. 0) Procedures (number) 40.0 40.0 29.0 31.0 37.0 34.0 32.0 29.0 Singapore (21.0)* Resolving Insolvency (rank) 23 22 22 3 29 10 41 13 Finland (1) Resolving Insolvency (DTF Score) 75.89 76.42 75.94 91.78 71.29 84.19 63.10 82.04 Finland (93.85) Doing Business 2015 Spain 15 Indicator Spain DB2015 Spain DB2014 France DB2015 Germany DB2015 Italy DB2015 Portugal DB2015 Switzerland DB2015 United kingdom DB2015 Best performer globally DB2015 Time (years) 1. 5 1. 5 1. 9 1. 2 1. 8 2. 0 3. 0 1. 0 Ireland (0. 4) Cost(%of estate) 11.0 11.0 9. 0 8. 0 22.0 9. 0 3. 5 6. 0 Norway (1. 0) Outcome (0 as piecemeal sale and 1 as going concern) 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 Recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 71.3 72.3 77.2 83.4 62.8 72.2 47.6 88.6 Japan (92.9) Strength of insolvency framework index (0-16) 12.0 12.0 11.0 15.0 12.0 14.5 12.0 11.0 5 Economies (15.0)* Note: DB2014 rankings shown are not last year's published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2014 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and changes to the methodology. Trading across borders deflated and non-deflated values are identical in DB2015 because it is defined as the base year for the deflator. The best performer on time for paying taxes is defined as the lowest time recorded among all economies in the DB2015 sample that levy the 3 major taxes: profit tax, labor taxes and mandatory contributions, and VAT or sales tax. If an economy has no laws or regulations covering a specific area for example, insolvency it receives a no practice mark. Similarly, an economy receives a no practice or not possible mark if regulation exists but is used never in practice or if a competing regulation prohibits such practice. Either way, a no practice mark puts the economy at the bottom of the ranking on the relevant indicator.**Two or more economies share the top ranking on this indicator. A number shown in place of an economy's name indicates the number of economies that share the top ranking on the indicator. For a list of these economies, see the Doing Business website (http://www. doingbusiness. org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 16 STARTING A BUSINESS Formal registration of companies has many immediate benefits for the companies and for business owners and employees. Legal entities can outlive their founders. Resources are pooled as several shareholders join forces to start a company. Formally registered companies have access to services and institutions from courts to banks as well as to new markets. And their employees can benefit from protections provided by the law. An additional benefit comes with limited liability companies. These limit the financial liability of company owners to their investments so personal assets of the owners are not put at risk. Where governments make registration easy, more entrepreneurs start businesses in the formal sector, creating more good jobs and generating more revenue for the government. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business measures the ease of starting a business in an economy by recording all procedures officially required or commonly done in practice by an entrepreneur to start up and formally operate an industrial or commercial business as well as the time and cost required to complete these procedures. It also records the paid-in minimum capital that companies must deposit before registration (or within 3 months. The ranking of economies on the ease of starting a business is determined by sorting their distance to frontier scores for starting a business. These scores are the simple average of the distance to frontier scores for each of the component indicators. To make the data comparable across economies, Doing Business uses several assumptions about the business and the procedures. It assumes that all information is readily available to the entrepreneur and that there has been no prior contact with officials. It also assumes that the entrepreneur will pay no bribes. And it assumes that the business: Is a limited liability company, located in the largest business city and is 100%domestically owned1. Has between 10 and 50 employees. Conducts general commercial or industrial activities. WHAT THE STARTING A BUSINESS INDICATORS MEASURE Procedures to legally start and operate a company (number) Preregistration (for example, name verification or reservation, notarization) Registration in the economy's largest business city1 Postregistration (for example, social security registration, company seal) Time required to complete each procedure (calendar days) Does not include time spent gathering information Each procedure starts on a separate day (2 procedures cannot start on the same day). Procedures that can be completed fully online are recorded as day. Procedure completed once final document is received No prior contact with officials Cost required to complete each procedure(%of income per capita) Official costs only, no bribes No professional fees unless services required by law Paid-in minimum capital(%of income per capita) Deposited in a bank or with a notary before registration (or within 3 months) Has a start-up capital of 10 times income per capita. Has a turnover of at least 100 times income per capita. Does not qualify for any special benefits. Does not own real estate. 1 For the 11 economies with a population of more than 100 million data for a second city have been added. Doing Business 2015 Spain 17 STARTING A BUSINESS Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to start a business in Spain? According to data collected by Doing Business, starting a business there requires 6. 0 procedures, takes 13.0 days, costs 4. 6%of income per capita and requires paid-in minimum capital of 13.8%of income per capita (figure 2. 1). Most indicator sets refer to a case scenario in the largest business city of an economy, except for 11 economies for which the data are weighted a population average of the 2 largest business cities. See the chapter on distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking at the end of this profile for more details. Figure 2. 1 What it takes to start a business in Spain Paid-in minimum capital(%of income per capita: 13.8 Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. Online procedures account for 0. 5 days in the total time calculation. For more information on the methodology of the starting a business indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www. doingbusiness. org. For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 18 STARTING A BUSINESS Globally, Spain stands at 74 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of starting a business (figure 2. 2). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful information for assessing how easy it is for an entrepreneur in Spain to start a business. Figure 2. 2 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of starting a business Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 19 STARTING A BUSINESS Economies around the world have taken steps making it easier to start a business streamlining procedures by setting up a one-stop shop, making procedures simpler or faster by introducing technology and reducing or eliminating minimum capital requirements. Many have undertaken business registration reforms in stages and they often are part of a larger regulatory reform program. Among the benefits have been greater firm satisfaction and savings and more registered businesses, financial resources and job opportunities. What business registration reforms has Doing Business recorded in Spain (table 2. 1? Table 2. 1 How has made Spain starting a business easier or not? By Doing Business report year from DB2010 to DB2015 DB year Reform DB2012 Spain eased the process of starting a business by reducing the cost to start a business and decreasing the minimum capital requirement. DB2014 Spain made starting a business easier by eliminating the requirement to obtain a municipal license before starting operations and by improving the efficiency of the commercial registry. DB2015 Spain made starting a business easier by introducing an electronic system linking several public agencies and thereby simplifying business registration. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www. doingbusiness. org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 20 STARTING A BUSINESS What are the details? Underlying the indicators shown in this chapter for Spain is a set of specific procedures the bureaucratic and legal steps that an entrepreneur must complete to incorporate and register a new firm. These are identified by Doing Business through collaboration with relevant local professionals and the study of laws, regulations and publicly available information on business entry in that economy. Following is a detailed summary of those procedures, along with the associated time and cost. These procedures are those that apply to a company matching the standard assumptions (the standardized company) used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators measure. STANDARDIZED COMPANY Legal form: Sociedad de responsabilidad limitada (SRL)- Limited liability Company Paid in minimum capital requirement: EUR 3, 000 City: Madrid Start-up Capital: 10 times GNI per capita Table 2. 2 Summary of time, cost and procedures for starting a business in Spain No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete 1 Obtain a certification of uniqueness of proposed company name (certificación negativa de la denominación social) from the Mercantile Register Once the Registry issues the certification, the requested corporate name will be reserved for a maximum of 6 months from the certification's date of issuance. Each certification of uniqueness of the corporate name is valid for 3 months from its date of issuance. Furthermore, once the certificate's validity has expired (3 months the certificate can only be renewed once, after which a new certificate must be requested. Agency: Central Commercial Registry 2 days on average EUR 16.25 2 Open a bank account for the company; deposit capital in the bank and obtain a deposit certificate The contributions can also be given directly to the notary public before whom the deed of incorporation is going to be granted, at the time of the granting, so that the notary can deposit them in the Company's bank account. Agency: Bank 1 day no charge Doing Business 2015 Spain 21 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete 3 File the single electronic form (DUE) and make an appointment with a notary Entrepreneurs can visit a Help desk for Entrepreneurs (PAE, Punto de Atención Empresarial) where they will fill in the single electronic form called DUE (Documento Unico Electronico). The PAE will then send the DUE through the electronic platform CIRCE to each administrative department involved in the process of starting a business, such as the notary's office, the commercial registry, the tax agency and the social security agency. The PAE will also help the entrepreneur to set up an appointment with a notary that will grant the public deed of incorporation of the company. Agency: Punto de Atencion Empresarial (PAE) 1 day no charge 4 Obtain the registered public deed of incorporation of the company and the fiscal identification number (CIF) before a public notary The DUE is sent electronically through CIRCE to the notary for the incorporation of the deed. Once the notary has granted the public deed, he sends an electronic communication to the tax administration agency asking for the provisional Tax Number (CIF) for the new company. The notary also sends the public deed for registration with the commercial registry. Once the company is registered with the commercial registry the registry communicates the registration of the deed to the tax administration and asks for the definitive tax number for the company again by electronic means through CIRCE. Finally, CIRCE notifies the definitive tax number to the notary and the notary communicates it to the founders of the company. Registering the deed with the commercial registry and obtaining the provisional CIF from the tax authority takes 3 days approximately but it takes a few more days to obtain the final tax number. Notary costs approximately €500 (depending on the amount of the share capital and complexity of the operation) and registration costs EUR 155 to EUR 300 (depending on the amount of the share capital) Agency: Public Notary 7 days see procedure details 5 Submit a notification of start of operations (declaración responsable) to a private agency authorized by the municipality (ECLU) On December 26, 2012, Spain adopted law 12/2012. This law removes the requirement for certain commercial activities to obtain a municipal license to initiate the execution of works and start operations. A company can start operations after submitting a simple notification (declaracion responsable sin certificado de conformidad) to the private agencies authorized by the Municipality (ECLU. 1 day EUR 350. The cost varies depending on the location and the size of the business premises. Doing Business 2015 Spain 22 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete Agency: Town Council 6*Notify the Delegación Provincial de la Consejería de Trabajo e Industria The corresponding autonomous community must be notified within the first 30 days of the start of activities and the opening of the workplace. Every autonomous community has its own form. Some require that work injury and safety documentation (corresponding to the specific business or workplace in question) be filed along with the forms. Other forms and documents might be needed depending on the workplace activities. Agency: Dirección Gral Trabajo-Comunidad de Madrid 1 day (simultaneous with previous procedure) no charge*Takes place simultaneously with another procedure. Note: Online procedures account for 0. 5 days in the total time calculation. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 23 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Regulation of construction is critical to protect the public. But it needs to be efficient, to avoid excessive constraints on a sector that plays an important part in every economy. Where complying with building regulations is excessively costly in time and money, many builders opt out. They may pay bribes to pass inspections or simply build illegally, leading to hazardous construction that puts public safety at risk. Where compliance is simple, straightforward and inexpensive, everyone is better off. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business records the procedures, time and cost for a business in the construction industry to obtain all the necessary approvals to build a warehouse in the economy's largest business city, connect it to basic utilities and register the warehouse so that it can be used as collateral or transferred to another entity. The ranking of economies on the ease of dealing with construction permits is determined by sorting their distance to frontier scores for dealing with construction permits. These scores are the simple average of the distance to frontier scores for each of the component indicators. To make the data comparable across economies Doing Business uses several assumptions about the business and the warehouse, including the utility connections. The business: Is a limited liability company operating in the construction business and located in the largest business city. For the 11 economies with a population of more than 100 million, data for a second city have been added. is owned domestically and operated. Has 60 builders and other employees. The warehouse: Is valued at 50 times income per capita. Is a new construction (there was no previous construction on the land. WHAT THE DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS INDICATORS MEASURE Procedures to legally build a warehouse (number) Submitting all relevant documents and obtaining all necessary clearances, licenses, permits and certificates Submitting all required notifications and receiving all necessary inspections Obtaining utility connections for water and sewerage Registering the warehouse after its completion (if required for use as collateral or for transfer of the warehouse) Time required to complete each procedure (calendar days) Does not include time spent gathering information Each procedure starts on a separate day. Procedures that can be completed fully online are recorded as day. Procedure considered completed once final document is received No prior contact with officials Cost required to complete each procedure(%of warehouse value) Official costs only no bribes Will have complete architectural and technical plans prepared by a licensed architect or engineer. will be connected to water and sewerage (sewage system, septic tank or their equivalent. The connection to each utility network will be 150 meters (492 feet) long. will be used for general storage, such as of books or stationery (not for goods requiring special conditions). Will take 30 weeks to construct (excluding all delays due to administrative and regulatory requirements. Doing Business 2015 Spain 24 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to comply with the formalities to build a warehouse in Spain? According to data collected by Doing Business, dealing with construction permits there requires 7. 0 procedures, takes 229.0 days and costs 5. 2%of the warehouse value (figure 3. 1). Most indicator sets refer to a case scenario in the largest business city of an economy, except for 11 economies for which the data are weighted a population average of the 2 largest business cities. See the chapter on distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking at the end of this profile for more details. Figure 3. 1 What it takes to comply with formalities to build a warehouse in Spain Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. Online procedures account for 0. 5 days in the total time calculation. For more information on the methodology of the dealing with construction permits indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www. doingbusiness. org. For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 25 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Globally, Spain stands at 105 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of dealing with construction permits (figure 3. 2). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful information for assessing how easy it is for an entrepreneur in Spain to legally build a warehouse. Figure 3. 2 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of dealing with construction permits Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 26 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS What are the details? The indicators reported here for Spain are based on a set of specific procedures the steps that a company must complete to legally build a warehouse identified by Doing Business through information collected from experts in construction licensing, including architects, civil engineers, construction lawyers, construction firms, utility service providers and public officials who deal with building regulations. These procedures are those that apply to a company and structure matching the standard assumptions used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators cover). BUILDING A WAREHOUSE Estimated cost of construction: EUR 1, 087,883 City: Madrid The procedures, along with the associated time and cost, are summarized below. Table 3. 2 Summary of time, cost and procedures for dealing with construction permits in Spain No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete 1 Request and obtain a certificate of compliance (certificado de conformidad) Prior to applying for the construction permit, Buildco must obtain a compliance certificate. This certificate is the provisional license which can be obtained from two agencies-Municipality or Entidades Colaboradoras Urbanisticas-ECU according to the new Local Ordinance of the City council of Madrid("Ordenanza para la apertura de actividades economicas en la ciudad de Madrid")."The ECU has 2 months to examine the documentation and grant the compliance certificate. Once the compliance certificate has been granted, it must be attached to the building permit application. The final construction permit is issued by the Municipality. Once the licencia urbanistica de obras y actividad is issued by the Municipality of Madrid, Buildco can proceed with the construction. Agency: Entidades Colaboradoras Urbanisticas-ECU 60 days EUR 6, 277 2 Request and obtain a building license The documents required to obtain the license are the following: A standardized application form and sheet containing the characteristics of the construction properly completed Proof of payment of tax Declaration by one or more technical authors (architect and project design specialists) that the project conforms to the appropriate town planning regulations, and certificate of the structural feasibility, if necessary Declaration of the promoter that a signboard has been posted at the site to inform the public that a building license has been applied for and to provide information about the proposed operations and activities 90 days EUR 43,515 Doing Business 2015 Spain 27 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete Three copies of the technical project designs signed by qualified technician (s) and countersigned by the appropriate official institute (or in this case by the project's administrative supervision office, accompanied by the application sheets of the appropriate professional association) Confirmation of the deposit of a guarantee Authorization program for independent parts of the construction or approval of partial projects, if requested by the promoter In cases of renovation/expansion of buildings included in the general catalog of protected elements in historic city centers or historic centers of peripheral districts and historic colonies, a color photographic description of the existing building that permits, during enlargement operations, confirmation of the correct alignment of the enlargement plans with the historic city zoning restrictions License of parceling if the new construction needs previous parceling Official alignment, if required Project design of installation of telecommunications infrastructure Real Decreto 346/2011 Project design of the use of solar energy for heating (either as an independent project design or as part of the general project design), signed by a qualified technician and countersigned by the appropriate official institute, if required by the Regulation Concerning the Harnessing of Solar energy for Thermal Use Reglamento de seguridad contra incendios en los establecimientos industriales RD 2267/2004, de 3 de diciembre, modificado en parte por el RD 560/2010 de 7 de mayo Security and health certification or a basic certification regarding RD 1627 /1997 de 24 de octubre Certify the destination of all the construction waste and demolition (RCD) according to the Law 5/2003 and amendments by Law 9/2010 (regarding abandoned and discharged wastes) This procedure is regulated by the Ordenanza Fiscal Municipal Reguladora del Impuesto sobre Construcciones , Instalaciones y Obras (ICIO), dated October 9, 2001. According to article 19.2 of this regulation, the granting of any building license is taxed by at 4%of the construction value. Agency: Municipality of Madrid 3 Receive random inspection According to the building license, one on-site inspection must be carried out during construction and one at the end of the process. If, during the inspections, the committee detects any possible infringements of the building regulations or criminal law, a proposal on sanctions must be made, and a copy of the written record is given to the public prosecutor. At minimum, administrative proceedings are initiated. In each inspection report, a record is included that provides information on every person involved and their roles, as well as on the facts, circumstances, dates, and results of the inspection. The record is regarded as a public administrative deed. The record must be signed by 1 day no charge Doing Business 2015 Spain 28 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete the inspector (s) and by the person to whom the construction works have been attributed at the time of the inspection. Agency: Entidades Colaboradoras Urbanisticas-ECU 4 Request and receive final inspection in connection with the operating license Private collaborating entities (ECU) carry out the inspection and issue the declaration of conformity at the end of the construction works. Buildco must pay a fee to the collaborating entities. The amount is EUR 2600 for the first 500 square meters and additionally EUR 1. 25 for every additional square meter. The cost details to request and receive final inspection is provided on the official website of the Municipality of Madrid, www. munimadrid. es. The legal basis is Agreement of the Local government Board of the City council of Madrid dated September 26, 2013, setting the maximum price for services of the private collaborating entities for 2014 (Official Gazette of the City council of Madrid N. 7015 (09/30/2013. Agency: Entidades Colaboradoras Urbanisticas-ECU 30 days EUR 3, 601 5 Request and obtain operating license("licencia de primera ocupacion")The purpose of the operating license is to verify that the construction and activities have been executed according to the project and the conditions under which the license had been granted, and that the construction has been completed and is adequate for urban determinations, the atmosphere and the security of its specific destination. As soon as construction is finished, in order to receive the first operating license (licencia de primera ocupación), the builder must submit the following documents to the ECU: Final certificate of terminated construction (declaration of conformity), which must be signed by the technical director of the work. This certificate must declare that the constructed building is in accordance with the issued license. For modifications that do need not approval of the City council (23.2 of the Ordenanza Municipal de Tramitación de Licencias Urbanísticas de 23 de diciembre de 2004), the builder has to detail these modifications. If urbanization works have been carried out simultaneously with construction, and this urbanization was completed by the builder, the builder must present the final certification of these works. Certificado final de obra visado por el Colegio Profesional y Plan de Autoprotección (Ordenanza Municipal de Tramitación de Licencias Urbanísticas de 23 de diciembre de 2004-BOCM de 7 de enero de 2005) The cost is as follows: EUR 206.55 for surfaces up to 500 square meters and EUR 49.45 for every additional 100 square meters until 20,500 square meters. 30 days EUR 603 Doing Business 2015 Spain 29 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete Agency: Municipality of Madrid 6 Register the new building Registration fees cannot exceed EUR 2, 181.00 according to Real Decreto 1427/1989, de 17 de noviembre, por el que se aprueba el arancel de los registradores de la Propiedad. Notary and registration fees depend on the value of the building. For a warehouse value like the one described in the case study, the cost to register the warehouse is approximately EUR 1, 273.60 (Notary fee: 441.04+Registration fee: 832.56. Agency: Property Registry 18 days EUR 1, 274 7*Request and obtain water connection If the flow of water is less than 6 liters per second or if fewer than 25 counters are needed in one hall, only the following documents must be submitted: Technical report (Memoria técnica), not required if the flow of water is less than 3 liters per second Form 2. 1. 4 Confirmation of fee payment (EUR 12.28 must be paid at the counter) Two copies of Form 2. 1 . 3 (Impreso de Final de Obra) If the required flow of water is more than 6 liters per second or if more than 25 counters are needed in one hall, the following additional documents must be filed: Project design from an engineer specialized in planning water facilities Fee (in this case, a certain percentage of the budget) Agency: Canal de Isabel II 2 days EUR 1, 200*Takes place simultaneously with another procedure. Note: Online procedures account for 0. 5 days in the total time calculation. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 30 GETTING ELECTRICITY Access to reliable and affordable electricity is vital for businesses. To counter weak electricity supply, many firms in developing economies have to rely on self-supply, often at a prohibitively high cost. Whether electricity is reliably available or not, the first step for a customer is always to gain access by obtaining a connection. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business records all procedures required for a local business to obtain a permanent electricity connection and supply for a standardized warehouse, as well as the time and cost to complete them. These procedures include applications and contracts with electricity utilities, clearances from other agencies and the external and final connection works. The ranking of economies on the ease of getting electricity is determined by sorting their distance to frontier scores for getting electricity. These scores are the simple average of the distance to frontier scores for each of the component indicators. To make the data comparable across economies several assumptions are used. The warehouse: is owned by a local entrepreneur, located in the economy's largest business city, in an area where other warehouses are located. For the 11 economies with a population of more than 100 million, data for a second city have been added. Is not in a special economic zone where the connection would be eligible for subsidization or faster service. is located in an area with no physical constraints (ie. property not near a railway. Is a new construction being connected to electricity for the first time. Is 2 stories, both above ground, with a total surface of about 1, 300.6 square meters (14,000 square feet), is built on a plot of 929 square meters (10,000 square feet), is used for storage of refrigerated goods The electricity connection: Is 150 meters long and is a 3-phase, 4-wire Y, 140-kilovolt-ampere (kva)( subscribed capacity) connection. WHAT THE GETTING ELECTRICITY INDICATORS MEASURE Procedures to obtain an electricity connection (number) Submitting all relevant documents and obtaining all necessary clearances and permits Completing all required notifications and receiving all necessary inspections Obtaining external installation works and possibly purchasing material for these works Concluding any necessary supply contract and obtaining final supply Time required to complete each procedure (calendar days) Is at least 1 calendar day Each procedure starts on a separate day Does not include time spent gathering information Reflects the time spent in practice, with little follow-up and no prior contact with officials Cost required to complete each procedure(%of income per capita) Official costs only, no bribes Excludes value added tax Is to either the low-voltage or the medium-voltage distribution network and either overhead or underground, whichever is more common in the area where the warehouse is located. Included only negligible length in the customer's private domain. Requires crossing of a 10-meter road but all the works are carried out in a public land, so there is no crossing into other people's private property. Involves installing one electricity meter. The monthly electricity consumption will be 26880 kilowatt hour (kwh. The internal electrical wiring has been completed. Doing Business 2015 Spain 31 GETTING ELECTRICITY Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to obtain a new electricity connection in Spain? According to data collected by Doing Business, getting electricity there requires 5. 0 procedures, takes 85.0 days and costs 242.0%of income per capita (figure 4. 1). Most indicator sets refer to a case scenario in the largest business city of an economy, except for 11 economies for which the data are weighted a population average of the 2 largest business cities. See the chapter on distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking at the end of this profile for more details. Figure 4. 1 What it takes to obtain an electricity connection in Spain Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. For more information on the methodology of the getting electricity indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www. doingbusiness. org. For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 32 GETTING ELECTRICITY Globally, Spain stands at 74 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of getting electricity (figure 4. 2). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide another perspective in assessing how easy it is for an entrepreneur in Spain to connect a warehouse to electricity. Figure 4. 2 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of getting electricity Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 33 GETTING ELECTRICITY What are the details? The indicators reported here for Spain are based on a set of specific procedures the steps that an entrepreneur must complete to get a warehouse connected to electricity by the local distribution utility identified by Doing Business. Data are collected from the distribution utility, then completed and verified by electricity regulatory agencies and independent professionals such as electrical engineers, electrical contractors and construction companies. The electricity distribution utility surveyed is the one serving the area (or areas) in which warehouses are located. If there is a choice of distribution utilities, the one serving the largest number of customers is selected. OBTAINING AN ELECTRICITY CONNECTION Name of utility: Iberdrola City: Madrid The procedures are those that apply to a warehouse and electricity connection matching the standard assumptions used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators cover). The procedures, along with the associated time and cost, are summarized below. Table 4. 2 Summary of time, cost and procedures for getting electricity in Spain No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete 1 The customer obtains an administrative approval for the connection project from the DIRECCIÓN GENERAL DE INDUSTRIA, ENERGÍA Y MINAS For any kind of electrical project an administrative authorization has to be obtained from the DIRECCIÓN GENERAL DE INDUSTRIA, ENERGÍA Y MINAS. The engineer in charge of preparing the electrical plans submits a project plan to the Dirección General for approval. The Dirección General will review the documents to establish if the project complies with the relevant standards. The project is inspected not for the purpose of the approval (Iberdrola will later on do an inspection to ensure that the project has been realized according to the plans approved by the Dirección General. For an installation project in low or medium voltage different types of approvals exist. An installation project that involves a medium voltage connection has to be registered directly with the Dirección General and the cost for the procedure is approximately EUR 1, 100. For an installation involving a low voltage connection, customers usually contract a private firm that deals with the administrative procedure for them. This private firm will also inspect the installation before submitting the project for approval. This leads to a higher cost of approximately EUR 1, 600. This procedure can be done simultaneously with the following or in advance. Agency: DIRECCIÓN GENERAL DE INDUSTRIA, ENERGÍA Y MINAS 30 calendar days EUR 1, 100 Doing Business 2015 Spain 34 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete 2*The customer submits his service application with Iberdrola and awaits the preparation of an estimate Most customers submit their service application to Iberdrola at the same time that they apply for the administrative approval with the Dirección General. Iberdrola will prepare an estimate and inform the customer with a letter about the estimated costs of the project. The payment is made at the bank. A receipt of this payment has to be submitted to Iberdrola at the time when the customer signs the supply contract. After signing the supply contract the connection should be finalized within 5 working days according to the relevant regulation. Agency: Iberdrola 20 calendar days EUR 3, 604 3*The customer obtains a license for the external works from the City council Customers need to obtain a license for the external works from the municipality. The taxes on this license are 4%of the cost of the works. Agency: City council 25 calendar days EUR 1, 840 4 Iberdrola or a private firm does the connection works Customers have two choices: The external connection works can be done by Iberdrola or the customer can hire a private licensed electrical constructor. Two cases are considered equally likely for a customer with a load of 140kva: Iberdrola's distribution network allows for connections of up to 160kva at the low-voltage level. If the area where the new connection is done has enough spare capacity the connection can be done to the low voltage lines. In some cases two connections are done for one customer to avoid that a new transformer station has to be installed. If no spare capacity exists, Iberdrola will connect the new customer to the medium voltage grid which will increase the connection costs for the customer. A transformer station will have to be installed in these cases and the station remains in the possession of the customer given that he pays for it in its entirety. Iberdrola considers the transformer part of the internal wiring installations of the client. 55 calendar days EUR 46,000 Doing Business 2015 Spain 35 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete Agency: Iberdrola 5*The customer signs a supply contract with Iberdrola and awaits the installation of the meter and energization of the project The customer elects a supplier for the supply contract and asks for the installation of the meter. Irrespective of who executes the actual works of the connection (installation of the transformer, excavation for cables etc. Iberdrola is always in charge of installing the meter and the final energization of the project. The meter can be rented or bought by the customer. Most clients prefer to rent it at an approximate cost of EUR12 per month. According to Article 79 of the Real Decreto 1955/2000, the utility can levy a security deposit in the amount of one month of future consumption (corresponding to 50 hours supply of the contracted load. Agency: Iberdrola 5 calendar days EUR 114.86*Takes place simultaneously with another procedure. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 36 REGISTERING PROPERTY Ensuring formal property rights is fundamental. Effective administration of land is part of that. If formal property transfer is too costly or complicated, formal titles might go informal again. And where property is informal or poorly administered, it has little chance of being accepted as collateral for loans limiting access to finance. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business records the full sequence of procedures necessary for a business to purchase property from another business and transfer the property title to the buyer's name. The transaction is considered complete when it is opposable to third parties and when the buyer can use the property, use it as collateral for a bank loan or resell it. The ranking of economies on the ease of registering property is determined by sorting their distance to frontier scores for registering property. These scores are the simple average of the distance to frontier scores for each of the component indicators. To make the data comparable across economies several assumptions about the parties to the transaction, the property and the procedures are used. The parties (buyer and seller: Are limited liability companies, 100%domestically and privately owned and perform general commercial activities. are located in the economy's largest business city2. Have 50 employees each, all of whom are nationals. The property (fully owned by the seller: Has a value of 50 times income per capita. The sale price equals the value. is registered in the land registry or cada-stre, or both, and is free of title disputes. Property will be transferred in its entirety. WHAT THE REGISTERING PROPERTY INDICATORS MEASURE Procedures to legally transfer title on immovable property (number) Preregistration (for example, checking for liens, notarizing sales agreement, paying property transfer taxes) Registration in the economy's largest business city2 Postregistration (for example, filing title with the municipality) Time required to complete each procedure (calendar days) Does not include time spent gathering information Each procedure starts on a separate day. Procedures that can be completed fully online are recorded as day. Procedure considered completed once final document is received No prior contact with officials Cost required to complete each procedure(%of property value) Official costs only, no bribes No value added or capital gains taxes included is located in a periurban commercial zone, and no rezoning is required. has attached no mortgages, has been under the same ownership for the past 10 years. Consists of 557.4 square meters (6, 000 square feet) of land and a 10-year-old, 2-story warehouse of 929 square meters (10,000 square feet. The warehouse is in good condition and complies with all safety standards, building codes and legal requirements. There is no heating system. 2 For the 11 economies with a population of more than 100 million, data for a second city have been added. Doing Business 2015 Spain 37 REGISTERING PROPERTY Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to complete a property transfer in Spain? According to data collected by Doing Business, registering property there requires 5. 0 procedures, takes 12.0 days and costs 6. 1%of the property value (figure 5. 1). Most indicator sets refer to a case scenario in the largest business city of an economy, except for 11 economies for which the data are weighted a population average of the 2 largest business cities. See the chapter on distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking at the end of this profile for more details. Figure 5. 1 What it takes to register property in Spain Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. Online procedures account for 0. 5 days in the total time calculation. For more information on the methodology of the registering property indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www. doingbusiness. org). For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 38 REGISTERING PROPERTY Globally, Spain stands at 66 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of registering property (figure 5. 2). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful information for assessing how easy it is for an entrepreneur in Spain to transfer property. Figure 5. 2 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of registering property Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 39 REGISTERING PROPERTY Economies worldwide have been making it easier for entrepreneurs to register and transfer property such as by computerizing land registries, introducing time limits for procedures and setting low fixed fees. Many have cut the time required substantially enabling buyers to use or mortgage their property earlier. What property registration reforms has Doing Business recorded in Spain (table 5. 1? Table 5. 1 How has made Spain registering property easier or not? By Doing Business report year from DB2010 to DB2015 DB year Reform DB2015 Spain made transferring property easier by reducing the property transfer tax rate. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www. doingbusiness. org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 40 REGISTERING PROPERTY What are the details? The indicators reported here are based on a set of specific procedures the steps that a buyer and seller must complete to transfer the property to the buyer's name identified by Doing Business through information collected from local property lawyers, notaries and property registries. These procedures are those that apply to a transaction matching the standard assumptions used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators cover. STANDARD PROPERTY TRANSFER Property value: EUR 1, 087,883 City: Madrid The procedures, along with the associated time and cost, are summarized below. Table 5. 2 Summary of time, cost and procedures for registering property in Spain No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete 1 Notary requests property information from the Property Registry According to the law (Art. 175 of the Decree dated on June 2, 1944), the notary is obliged to duly inform the parties, be aware of the ownership and encumbrances on the property, and consult the Property Registry books before executing the deed. Since the early 2000, the consultations can be done on-line at www. registradores. org and the printout from the internet is valid. This document is an Informative Land Registry Extract containing the same information as an Ownership and encumbrances Certificate, and bearing the same responsibility of the Registrar in case of mistake as a formal certificate would provide. This is an information product specifically foreseen by the Mortgage Law to answer the Notary's requests of Information related to registrable acts and contracts. The Notary submits an electronic request and receives the information also by electronic means. From that moment and for the next ten days, the Registrar must inform the Notary about any Document submitted to the Land Registry related to the same property, within the maximum term of 24 hours since such document was submitted to the Land Registry Office. This procedure is aimed at preventing any surprises or unexpected situations while the contract is being formalised. This scheme is supplemented with the electronic submission to the Registry of a Notarial Attestation covering the essential features of the contract in relation to which the Information was requested, sent by the Notary by electronic means at the time of the document's signature, in order to secure the priority of that document right after being signed. Since June 2011, the information from the Land Registry is also available in English. Translations come at an additional fee of EUR 20 and take up to 4 days. Agency: Property Registry 1 day (simultaneous with procedure 2) EUR 9 Doing Business 2015 Spain 41 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete 2*Notary obtains cadastral description Agency: Cadastre Less than a day (online procedure) no cost if obtained electronically 3 Execution and delivery of the public deed of purchase of the property Property transfers are valid with a private contract between the parties, plus the handing over of the posession of the property to the buyer (ie. the"traditio"through, for example, the handing over of the keys to the property to the buyer). However, in order to make the property transfer opposable to good faith third parties, it has to be registered at the Land Registry, and in order to be registered, the contract between the parties has to be notrarized. Notary fees are on a cumulative scale, as follows: Property value up to EUR 6, 010.12: EUR 90.151816 For the excess amount between EUR 6, 010.13 and EUR 30,050. 61:4. 5 per 1, 000 For the excess amount between EUR 30,050. 62 and EUR 60,101 . 21:1, 50 per 1, 000 For the excess amount between EUR 60,101. 22 and EUR 150,253. 03:1 per 1, 000 For the excess amount between EUR 150,253. 04 and EUR 601,012. 10:0. 5 per 1, 000 For the excess amount between EUR 601,012. 11 and EUR 6, 010,121. 04:0. 3 per 1 000 For the excess amount above EUR 6, 010,121. 04 the fees are determined by agreement between the notary and client. The Real Decreto Ley 8/2010, of May 20 2010, modifies the Real Decreto 1426/1989, of November 17th 1989, establishing notary fees. The 2010 decree establishes a 5%discount for notary fees. According to Royal Decree 45/2007, the notary must issue an authorized copy of the deed on the same or next day and send it to the Registry electronically, unless otherwise requested by the interested party. The documentation shall include: Power of attorney granted by the seller and ID of the person in favor of whom the power was granted. Power of attorney granted by the buyer and ID of the person in favor of whom the power was granted. The original property title of the Seller (public deed), which shall indicate the following information: Company tax identification and registration numbers Means of payment used in the transaction Cadastral reference Agency: Notary 2 days Notary's fees (decreasing scale: EUR 730 for a property of this value (minus 5%discount) For property values not exceeding EUR 6. 010,12: EUR 90,151816. for the excess amount between EUR 6. 010,13 and 30.050,61: 0, 45%.%for the excess amount between EUR 30 4 Payment of the Transfer tax (ITP) First transfers of property or transfers made between entrepreneurs are subject to VAT (down to 4%from the previous 8%rate , according to Royal Decree-Law 9/2011 of August 19, 2011) and Stamp duty (0. 5-1. 0%of the property value, depending on the autonomous region--it is 1. 5%in Madrid). Second and subsequent property transfers are not subject to VAT, but to the Transfer tax("Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales y Actos Jurídicos Documentados",ITP). The rate of the Less than a day (online procedure) 6%of purchase price (ITP) Doing Business 2015 Spain 42 No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete transfer tax is 6%to 10%depending on the autonomous region of Spain (in Madrid, it is 6%of the property value). For the Doing Business case study, as it is assumed that the buyer is a company and the property is in Madrid and has been transferred at least once in the past, the applicable tax should be the Transfer tax (ITP). The ITP is paid at the relevant tax office within 30 working days after the date of granting of the notarial deed of transfer (a copy of the transfer deed is to be attached to the transfer tax liquidation form. In many cities without a specific tax office, the payment can be done at the Registry at the moment of registration, so that those steps could merge into one. In some autonomias, like Madrid, Catalunya, and Andalucia, the tax may be paid online. However, it has to be noted that under certain circumstances (e g.,, that the acquisition of the property is within the scope of the usual activities of the acquiring company), the acquiring company can choose to make the transaction subject to transfer tax or VAT. In the case the company chose to have VAT apply it would be charged an 8%VAT rate on the sale price, plus a stamp duty of 1. 5%.The VAT paid would become a credit that the company would deduct fromsubsequent transactions, such as those related to the normal business of the company. Note: VAT rates were increased by Law 26/2009 of 23rd December, on Estate General Budgets for 2010. By this law, as from the 1st of July 2010, the general rate increased from 16%to 18%.%Agency: Tax Office 5 The public deed is registered at the Land and Property Registry The notary submits the public deed to the Land Registry. The Land Registry will review and register the transfer within the legal time limit of 15 business days. If the Procedure takes more than 15 business days, the fees will be reduced by 30, %unless there is an objective reason for the delay. With the introduction of technology and online Procedures due to Law 24/2005 of November 18, in particular section II on electronic registration, the time to register is in the process of being reduced. The average registration time is currently at 8 calendar days. The documentation to be presented to the Land Registry shall include: Public deed Proof of VAT or ITP payment (attached to the sale purchase agreement) Proof of stamp duty payment (in the case that VAT applied and not ITP) Agency: Land and Property Registry 8 days EUR 457 (minus 5%discount)* Takes place simultaneously with another procedure. Note: Online procedures account for 0. 5 days in the total time calculation. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 43 GETTING CREDIT Two types of frameworks can facilitate access to credit and improve its allocation: credit information systems and borrowers and lenders in collateral and bankruptcy laws. Credit information systems enable lenders'rights to view a potential borrower's financial history (positive or negative) valuable information to consider when assessing risk. And they permit borrowers to establish a good credit history that will allow easier access to credit. Sound collateral laws enable businesses to use their assets, especially movable property, as security to generate capital while strong creditors'rights have been associated with higher ratios of private sector credit to GDP. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business assesses the sharing of credit information and the legal rights of borrowers and lenders with respect to secured transactions through 2 sets of indicators. The depth of credit information index measures rules and practices affecting the coverage, scope and accessibility of credit information available through a credit registry or a credit bureau. The strength of legal rights index measures whether certain features that facilitate lending exist within the applicable collateral and bankruptcy laws. Doing Business uses two case scenarios, Case A and Case B, to determine the scope of the secured transactions system, involving a secured borrower and a secured lender and examining legal restrictions on the use of movable collateral (for more details on each case, see the Data Notes section of the Doing Business 2015 report. These scenarios assume that the borrower: Is a private limited liability company. Has its headquarters and only base of operations in the largest business city. For the 11 economies with a population of more than 100 million, data for a second city have been added. WHAT THE GETTING CREDIT INDICATORS MEASURE Strength of legal rights index (0 12) 3 Rights of borrowers and lenders through collateral laws Protection of secured creditors'rights through bankruptcy laws Depth of credit information index (0 8) 4 Scope and accessibility of credit information distributed by credit bureaus and credit registries Credit bureau coverage(%of adults) Number of individuals and firms listed in largest credit bureau as percentage of adult population Credit registry coverage(%of adults) Number of individuals and firms listed in credit registry as percentage of adult population Has up to 50 employees. is owned 100%domestically, as is the lender. The ranking of economies on the ease of getting credit is determined by sorting their distance to frontier scores for getting credit. These scores are the distance to frontier score for the strength of legal rights index and the depth of credit information index. 3 For the legal rights index, 2 new points are added in Doing Business 2015 for new data collected to assess the overall legal framework for secured transactions and the functioning of the collateral registry. 4 For the credit information index, 2 new points are added in Doing Business 2015 for new data collected on accessing borrowers'credit information online and availability of credit scores. Doing Business 2015 Spain 44 GETTING CREDIT Where does the economy stand today? How well do the credit information system and collateral and bankruptcy laws in Spain facilitate access to credit? The economy has a score of 7 on the depth of credit information index and a score of 5 on the strength of legal rights index (see the summary of scoring at the end of this chapter for details). Higher scores indicate more credit information and stronger legal rights for borrowers and lenders. Globally, Spain stands at 52 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of getting credit (figure 6. 1). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful information for assessing how well regulations and institutions in Spain support lending and borrowing. Figure 6. 1 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of getting credit Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 45 GETTING CREDITONE way to put an economy's score on the getting credit indicators into context is to see where the economy stands in the distribution of scores across economies. Figure 6. 2 highlights the score on the strength of legal rights index for Spain and shows the scores for comparator economies as well as the regional average score. Figure 6. 3 shows the same for the depth of credit information index. Figure 6. 2 How strong are legal rights for borrowers and lenders? Figure 6. 3 How much credit information is shared and how widely? Economy scores on strength of legal rights index Note: Higher scores indicate that collateral and bankruptcy laws are designed better to facilitate access to credit. Source: Doing Business database. Economy scores on depth of credit information index Note: Higher scores indicate the availability of more credit information, from either a credit registry or a credit bureau, to facilitate lending decisions. If the credit bureau or registry is not operational or covers less than 5%of the adult population, the total score on the depth of credit information index is 0. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 46 GETTING CREDIT What are the details? The getting credit indicators reported here for Spain are based on detailed information collected in that economy. The data on credit information sharing are collected through a survey of a credit registry and/or credit bureau (if one exists). To construct the depth of credit information index, a score of 1 is assigned for each of 8 features of the credit registry or credit bureau (see summary of scoring below). The data on the legal rights of borrowers and lenders are gathered through a survey of financial lawyers and verified through analysis of laws and regulations as well as public sources of information on collateral and bankruptcy laws. For the strength of legal rights index, a score of 1 is assigned for each of 10 aspects related to legal rights in collateral law and 2 aspects in bankruptcy law. Strength of legal rights index (0 12) Index score: 5 does integrated an or unified legal framework for secured transactions that extends to the creation, publicity and enforcement of functional equivalents to security interests in movable assets exist in the economy? No Does the law allow businesses to grant a non possessory security right in a single category of movable assets, without requiring a specific description of collateral? No Does the law allow businesses to grant a non possessory security right in substantially all of its assets, without requiring a specific description of collateral? Yes May a security right extend to future or after-acquired assets, and may it extend automatically to the products, proceeds or replacements of the original assets? No Is a general description of debts and obligations permitted in collateral agreements; can all types of debts and obligations be secured between parties; and can the collateral agreement include a maximum amount for which the assets are encumbered? Yes Is a collateral registry in operation for both incorporated and non-incorporated entities, that is unified geographically and by asset type, with an electronic database indexed by debtor's name? Yes does based a notice collateral registry exist in which all functional equivalents can be registered? No Does a modern collateral registry exist in which registrations, amendments, cancellations and searches can be performed online by any interested third party? No are secured creditors paid first (i e. before tax claims and employee claims) when a debtor defaults outside an insolvency procedure? No are secured creditors paid first (i e. before tax claims and employee claims) when a business is liquidated? Yes are secured creditors subject to an automatic stay on enforcement when a debtor enters a court-supervised reorganization procedure? Does the law protect secured creditors'rights by providing clear grounds for relief from the stay and/or sets a time limit for it? Yes Doing Business 2015 Spain 47 Strength of legal rights index (0 12) Index score: 5 Does the law allow parties to agree on out of court enforcement at the time a security interest is created? Does the law allow the secured creditor to sell the collateral through public auction and private tender, as well as, for the secured creditor to keep the asset in satisfaction of the debt? No Depth of credit information index (0 8) Credit bureau Credit registry Index score: 7 Are data on both firms and individuals distributed? Yes Yes 1 Are both positive and negative credit data distributed? No Yes 1 Are data from retailers or utility companies-in addition to data from banks and financial institutions-distributed? Yes No 1 Are at least 2 years of historical data distributed?(Credit bureaus and registries that distribute more than 10 years of negative data or erase data on defaults as soon as they are repaid obtain a score of 0 for this component.)No No 0 Are data on loan amounts below 1%of income per capita distributed? Yes No 1 By law, do borrowers have the right to access their data in the credit bureau or credit registry? Yes Yes 1 Can banks and financial institutions access borrowers'credit information online (for example, through an online platform, a system-to-system connection or both? Yes Yes 1 Are bureau or registry credit scores offered as a value-added service to help banks and financial institutions assess the creditworthiness of borrowers? Yes No 1 Note: Prior to Doing Business 2015, the depth of credit information index covered only the first 6 features listed above. An economy receives a score of 1 if there is a"yes"to either bureau or registry. If the credit bureau or registry is not operational or covers less than 5%of the adult population, the total score on the depth of credit information index is 0. Coverage Credit bureau(%of adults) Credit registry(%of adults) Number of firms 380,000 888,232 Number of individuals 4, 400,000 14,705, 320 Total 4, 780,000 15, 593,552 Doing Business 2015 Spain 48 Coverage Credit bureau(%of adults) Credit registry(%of adults) Total percentage of adult population 15.3 50.0 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 49 PROTECTING MINORITY INVESTORS Protecting minority investors matters for the ability of companies to raise the capital they need to grow, innovate, diversify and compete. Effective regulations define related-party transactions precisely, promote clear and efficient disclosure requirements, require shareholder participation in major decisions of the company and set detailed standards of accountability for company insiders. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business measures the protection of minority investors from conflicts of interest through one set of indicators and shareholders'rights in corporate governance through another. The ranking of economies on the strength of minority investor protections is determined by sorting their distance to frontier scores for protecting minority investors. These scores are the simple average of the distance to frontier scores for the extent of conflict of interest regulation index and the extent of shareholder governance index. To make the data comparable across economies, a case study uses several assumptions about the business and the transaction. The business (Buyer: is traded a publicly corporation listed on the economy's most important stock exchange (or at least a large private company with multiple shareholders. Has a board of directors and a chief executive officer (CEO) who may legally act on behalf of Buyer where permitted, even if this is not specifically required by law. The transaction involves the following details: Mr. James, a director and the majority shareholder of the company, proposes that the company purchase used trucks from another company he owns. The price is higher than the going price for used trucks, but the transaction goes forward. All required approvals are obtained, and all required disclosures made, though the transaction is prejudicial to Buyer. Shareholders sue the interested parties and the members of the board of directors. WHAT THE PROTECTING MINORITY INVESTORS INDICATORS MEASURE Extent of disclosure index (0 10) Review and approval requirements for related-party transactions; Disclosure requirements for related-party transactions Extent of director liability index (0 10) Ability of minority shareholders to sue and hold interested directors liable for prejudicial related-party transactions; Available legal remedies (damages, disgorgement of profits, fines, imprisonment, rescission of the transaction) Ease of shareholder suits index (0 10) Access to internal corporate documents; Evidence obtainable during trial and allocation of legal expenses Extent of conflict of interest regulation index (0 10) Sum of the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder indices, divided by 3 Extent of shareholder rights index (0-10.5) Shareholders'rights and role in major corporate decisions Strength of governance structure index (0-10.5) Governance safeguards protecting shareholders from undue board control and entrenchment Extent of corporate transparency index (0-9) Corporate transparency on ownership stakes, compensation, audits and financial prospects Extent of shareholder governance index (0 10 ) Sum of the extent of shareholders rights, strength of governance structure and extent of corporate transparency indices, divided by 3 Strength of investor protection index (0 10) Simple average of the extent of conflict of interest regulation and extent of shareholder governance indices Doing Business 2015 Spain 50 PROTECTING MINORITY INVESTORS Where does the economy stand today? How strong are minority investor protections against self-dealing in Spain? The economy has a score of 6. 4 on the strength of minority investor protection index, with a higher score indicating stronger protections. Globally, Spain stands at 30 in the ranking of 189 economies on the strength of minority investor protection index (figure 7. 1) . While the indicator does not measure all aspects related to the protection of minority investors, a higher ranking does indicate that an economy's regulations offer stronger minority investor protections against self-dealing in the areas measured. Figure 7. 1 How Spain and comparator economies perform on the strength of minority investor protection index Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 51 PROTECTING MINORITY INVESTORS One way to put an economy's scores on the protecting minority investors indicators into context is to see where the economy stands in the distribution of scores across comparator economies. Figures 7. 2 through 7. 7 highlight the scores on the various minority investor protection indices for Spain in 2014. A summary of scoring for the protecting minority investors indicators at the end of this chapter provides details on how the indices were calculated. Figure 7. 2 How extensive are disclosure requirements? Extent of disclosure index (0-10) Note: Higher scores indicate greater disclosure. Source: Doing Business database. Figure 7. 3 How extensive is the liability regime for directors? Extent of director liability index (0-10) Note: Higher scores indicate greater liability of directors. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 52 PROTECTING MINORITY INVESTORS Figure 7. 4 How easy is accessing internal corporate documents? Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) Note: Higher scores indicate greater minority shareholder access to evidence before and during trial. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 53 PROTECTING MINORITY INVESTORS Figure 7. 5 How extensive are shareholder rights? Extent of shareholder rights index (0-10.5) Note: The higher the score, the stronger the protections. Source: Doing Business database. Figure 7. 6 How strong is the governance structure? Strength of governance structure index (0-10.5) Note: Higher scores indicate more stringent governance structure requirements. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 54 Figure 7. 7 How extensive is corporate transparency? Extent of corporate transparency index (0-9) Note: Higher scores indicate greater transparency. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 55 PROTECTING MINORITY INVESTORS What are the details? The protecting minority investors indicators reported here for Spain are based on detailed information collected through a survey of corporate and securities lawyers about securities regulations, company laws and court rules of evidence and procedure. To construct the six indicators on minority investor protection, scores are assigned to each based on a range of conditions relating to disclosure, director liability, shareholder suits, shareholder rights, governance structure and corporate transparency in a standard case study (for more details, see the Data Notes section of the Doing Business 2015 report). The summary below shows the details underlying the scores for Spain. Table 7. 2 Summary of scoring for the protecting minority investors indicators in Spain Answer Score Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 5. 0 Which corporate body can provide legally sufficient approval for the Buyer-Seller transaction?(0-3) CEO alone 0 Is disclosure by the interested director to the board of directors required?(0-2) Full disclosure of all material facts 2 Is disclosure of the transaction in published periodic filings (annual reports) required?(0-2) Disclosure on the transaction and on the conflict of interest 2 Is immediate disclosure of the transaction to the public and/or shareholders required?(0-2) Disclosure on the transaction only 1 Must an external body review the terms of the transaction before it takes place?(0-1) No 0 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 6. 0 Can shareholders sue directly or derivatively for the damage caused by the Buyer-Seller transaction to the company?(0-1) Yes 1 Can shareholders hold the interested director liable for the damage caused by the transaction to the company?(0-2) Liable if negligent 1 Can shareholders hold members of the approving body liable for the damage cause by the transaction to the company?(0-2) Liable if negligent 1 Must the interested director pay damages for the harm caused to the company upon a successful claim by a shareholder plaintiff?(0-1) Yes 1 Must the interested director repay profits made from the transaction upon a successful claim by a shareholder plaintiff?(0-1) Yes 1 Can both fines and imprisonment be applied against the interested indrector?(0-1) Yes 1 Can a court void the transaction upon a successful claim by a shareholder plaintiff?(0-2) Only in case of fraud or bad faith 0 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 5. 0 Before filing suit, can shareholders owning 10%of the company's share capital inspect the transaction documents?(0-1) No 0 Can the plaintiff obtain any documents from the defendant Any relevant document 3 Doing Business 2015 Spain 56 and witnesses during trial?(0-3) Can the plaintiff request categories of documents from the defendant without identifying specific ones?(0-1) No 0 Can the plaintiff directly question the defendant and witnesses during trial?(0-2) No 1 Is the level of proof required for civil suits lower than that of criminal cases?(0-1) No 0 Can shareholder plaintiffs recover their legal expenses from the company?(0-2) Yes if successful 1 Strength of minority investor protection index (0-10) 6. 4 Extent of conflict of interest regulation index (0-10) 5 . 3 Extent of shareholder rights index (0-10.5) 10.5 Can shareholders amend company bylaws or statutes with a simple majority? Yes 1. 5 Can shareholders owning 10%of the company's share capital call for an extraordinary meeting of shareholders? Yes 1. 5 Can shareholders remove members of the board of directors before the end of their term. Yes 1. 5 Must a company obtain its shareholders'approval every time it issues new shares? Yes 1. 5 are granted shareholders automatically subscription rights on new shares? Yes 1. 5 Must shareholders approve the election and dismissal of the external auditor? Yes 1. 5 Can shareholders freely trade shares prior to a major corporate action or meeting of shareholders? Yes 1. 5 Strength of governance structure index (0-10.5) 5. 0 is barred the CEO from also serving as chair of the board of directors? No 0 Must the board of directors include independent board members? No 0 Must a company have a separate audit committee? Yes for listed companies 1 Must changes to the voting rights of a series or class of shares be approved only by the holders of the affected shares? Yes 1. 5 Must a potential acquirer make a tender offer to all shareholders upon acquiring 50%of a company? Yes for listed companies 1 Is cross-shareholding between 2 independent companies limited to 10%of outstanding shares? Yes 1. 5 is barred a subsidiary from acquiring shares issued by its parent company? No 0 Extent of corporate transparency index (0-9) 7. 0 Must ownership stakes representing 10%be disclosed? Yes 1. 5 Must information about board members'other directorships as well as basic information on their primary employment be disclosed? No 0 Must the compensation of individual managers be disclosed? Yes for listed companies 1 Must financial statements contain explanatory notes on significant accounting policies, trends, risks, uncertainties and other factors influencing the reporting? Yes 1. 5 Must annual financial statements be audited by an external Yes 1. 5 Doing Business 2015 Spain 57 auditor? Must audit reports be disclosed to the public? Yes 1. 5 Extent of shareholder governance index (0-10) 7. 5 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 58 Doing Business 2015 Spain 59 PAYING TAXES Taxes are essential. The level of tax rates needs to be chosen carefully and needless complexity in tax rules avoided. Firms in economies that rank better on the ease of paying taxes in the Doing Business study tend to perceive both tax rates and tax administration as less of an obstacle to business according to the World bank Enterprise Survey research. What do the indicators cover? Using a case scenario, Doing Business measures the taxes and mandatory contributions that a medium-size company must pay in a given year as well as the administrative burden of paying taxes and contributions. This case scenario uses a set of financial statements and assumptions about transactions made over the year. Information is compiled also on the frequency of filing and payments as well as time taken to comply with tax laws. The ranking of economies on the ease of paying taxes is determined by sorting their distance to frontier scores on the ease of paying taxes. These scores are the simple average of the distance to frontier scores for each of the component indicators with a threshold and a nonlinear transformation applied to one of the component indicators, the total tax rate5. The financial statement variables have been updated to be proportional to 2012 income per capita; previously they were proportional to 2005 income per capita. To make the data comparable across economies, several assumptions are used. Taxpayerco is a medium-size business that started operations on January 1, 2012. The business starts from the same financial position in each economy. All the taxes and mandatory contributions paid during the second year of operation are recorded. Taxes and mandatory contributions are measured at all levels of government. Taxes and mandatory contributions include corporate income tax, turnover tax and all labor taxes and contributions paid by the company. A range of standard deductions and exemptions are recorded also. WHAT THE PAYING TAXES INDICATORS MEASURE Tax payments for a manufacturing company in 2013 (number per year adjusted for electronic and joint filing and payment Total number of taxes and contributions paid, including consumption taxes (value added tax, sales tax or goods and service tax) Method and frequency of filing and payment Time required to comply with 3 major taxes (hours per year) Collecting information and computing the tax payable Completing tax return forms, filing with proper agencies Arranging payment or withholding Preparing separate tax accounting books, if required Total tax rate(%of profit before all taxes) Profit or corporate income tax Social contributions and labor taxes paid by the employer Property and property transfer taxes Dividend, capital gains and financial transactions taxes Waste collection, vehicle, road and other taxes 5 The nonlinear distance to frontier for the total tax rate is equal to the distance to frontier for the total tax rate to the power of 0. 8. The threshold is defined as the total tax rate at the 15th percentile of the overall distribution for all years included in the analysis. It is calculated and adjusted on a yearly basis. The threshold is not based on any economic theory of an optimal tax rate that minimizes distortions or maximizes efficiency in the tax system of an economy overall. Instead it is mainly empirical in nature, set at the lower end of the distribution of tax rates levied on medium-size enterprises in the manufacturing sector as observed through the paying taxes indicators. This reduces the bias in the indicators toward economies that do need not to levy significant taxes on companies like the Doing Business standardized case study company because they raise public revenue in other ways for example, through taxes on foreign companies, through taxes on sectors other than manufacturing or from natural resources (all of which are outside the scope of the methodology). This year's threshold is 26.1%.%Doing Business 2015 Spain 60 PAYING TAXES Where does the economy stand today? What is the administrative burden of complying with taxes in Spain and how much do firms pay in taxes? On average, firms make 8. 0 tax payments a year, spend 167.0 hours a year filing, preparing and paying taxes and pay total taxes amounting to 58.2%of profit (see the summary at the end of this chapter for details). Most indicator sets refer to a case scenario in the largest business city of an economy, except for 11 economies for which the data are weighted a population average of the 2 largest business cities. See the chapter on distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking at the end of this profile for more details. Globally, Spain stands at 76 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of paying taxes (figure 8. 1). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful information for assessing the tax compliance burden for businesses in Spain. Figure 8. 1 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of paying taxes Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 61 PAYING TAXES Economies around the world have made paying taxes faster and easier for businesses such as by consolidating filings, reducing the frequency of payments or offering electronic filing and payment. Many have lowered tax rates. Changes have brought concrete results. Some economies simplifying tax payment and reducing rates have seen tax revenue rise. What tax reforms has Doing Business recorded in Spain (table 8. 1? Table 8. 1 How has made Spain paying taxes easier or not? By Doing Business report year from DB2010 to DB2015 DB year Reform DB2010 Spain made paying taxes easier and less costly for companies by improving efficiency in the electronic filing and payment system and reducing the corporate income tax rate. DB2015 Spain made paying taxes less costly for companies by reducing the statutory corporate income tax rate. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www. doingbusiness. org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 62 PAYING TAXES What are the details? The indicators reported here for Spain are based on the taxes and contributions that would be paid by a standardized case study company used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators cover). Tax practitioners are asked to review a set of financial statements as well as a standardized list of assumptions and transactions that the company completed during its 2nd year of operation. Respondents are asked how much taxes and mandatory contributions the business must pay and how these taxes are filed and paid. LOCATION OF STANDARDIZED COMPANY City: Madrid The taxes and contributions paid are listed in the summary below, along with the associated number of payments, time and tax rate. Table 8. 2 Summary of tax rates and administration Tax or mandatory contribution Payments (number) Notes on payments Time (hours) Statutory tax rate Tax base Total tax rate (%of profit) Notes on total tax rate Employer paid-Social security contributions 1 online filing 90 30.9%gross salaries 35.68 Corporate income tax 1 online filing 33 30%taxable profit 21.9 Tax on interest 0 paid jointly 21%interest income 0. 54 not included Property tax 1 0. 581 %cadastral value (estimated in 40%of property cost for these purposes) 0. 46 Environmental tax 1 various rates type of activity and square meters 0. 09 Tax on insurance contracts 1 6%insurance premium 0. 06 Doing Business 2015 Spain 63 Tax or mandatory contribution Payments (number ) Notes on payments Time (hours) Statutory tax rate Tax base Total tax rate(%of profit) Notes on total tax rate Transport tax 1 EUR 592 type of truck 0. 04 Fuel tax 1 included in fuel price 0 small amount Employee paid-Social security contributions 0 paid jointly 6. 35%gross salaries 0 withheld Value added tax (VAT) 1 online filing 44 21%value added 0 not included Totals 8. 0 167.0 58.2 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 64 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS In today's globalized world, making trade between economies easier is increasingly important for business. Excessive document requirements, burdensome customs procedures, inefficient port operations and inadequate infrastructure all lead to extra costs and delays for exporters and importers, stifling trade potential. Research shows that exporters in developing countries gain more from a 10%drop in their trading costs than from a similar reduction in the tariffs applied to their products in global markets. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business measures the time and cost (excluding tariffs and the time and cost for sea transport) associated with exporting and importing a standard shipment of goods by sea transport, and the number of documents necessary to complete the transaction. The indicators cover predefined stages such as documentation requirements and procedures at customs and other regulatory agencies as well as at the port. They also cover trade logistics, including the time and cost of inland transport to the largest business city. The ranking of economies on the ease of trading across borders is determined by sorting their distance to frontier scores for trading across borders. These scores are the simple average of the distance to frontier scores for each of the component indicators. To make the data comparable across economies, Doing Business uses several assumptions about the business and the traded goods. The business: is located in the economy's largest business city. For the 11 economies with a population of more than 100 million, data for a second city have been added. Is a private, limited liability company, domestically owned and does not operate with special export or import privileges. Conducts export and import activities, but does not have any special accreditation such as an authorized economic operator status . WHAT THE TRADING ACROSS BORDERS INDICATORS MEASURE Documents required to export and import (number) Bank documents Customs clearance documents Port and terminal handling documents Transport documents Time required to export and import (days) Obtaining, filling out and submitting all the documents Inland transport and handling Customs clearance and inspections Port and terminal handling Does not include sea transport time Cost required to export and import (US$ per container) All documentation Inland transport and handling Customs clearance and inspections Port and terminal handling Official costs only, no bribes The traded product: Is not hazardous nor includes military items. Does not require refrigeration or any other special environment. Do not require any special phytosanitary or environmental safety standards other than accepted international standards. Is one of the economy's leading export or import products. is transported in a dry-cargo, 20-foot full container load. Doing Business 2015 Spain 65 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to export or import in Spain? According to data collected by Doing Business, exporting a standard container of goods requires 4 documents, takes 10.0 days and costs $1310. 0. Importing the same container of goods requires 4 documents, takes 9. 0 days and costs $1400. 0 (see the summary of four predefined stages and documents at the end of this chapter for details). Most indicator sets refer to a case scenario in the largest business city of an economy, except for 11 economies for which the data are weighted a population average of the 2 largest business cities. See the chapter on distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking at the end of this profile for more details. Globally, Spain stands at 30 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of trading across borders (figure 9. 1). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful information for assessing how easy it is for a business in Spain to export and import goods. Figure 9. 1 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of trading across borders Source Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 66 TRADING ACROSS BORDERSIN economies around the world, trading across borders as measured by Doing Business has become faster and easier over the years. Governments have introduced tools to facilitate trade including single windows, risk-based inspections and electronic data interchange systems. These changes help improve the trading environment and boost firms'international competitiveness. What trade reforms has Doing Business recorded in Spain (table 9. 1? Table 9. 1 How has made Spain trading across borders easier or not? By Doing Business report year from DB2010 to DB2015 DB year Reform DB2011 Spain streamlined the documentation for imports by including tax-related information on its single administrative document. DB2013 Spain reduced the time to import by further expanding the use of electronic submission of customs declarations and improving the sharing of information among customs and other agencies. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www. doingbusiness. org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 67 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS What are the details? The indicators reported here for Spain are based on a set of specific predefined stages for trading a standard shipment of goods by ocean transport (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators cover. Information on the required documents and the time and cost to complete export and import is collected from local freight forwarders, shipping lines, customs brokers, port officials and banks. LOCATION OF STANDARDIZED COMPANY Port Name: Valencia City: Madrid The predefined stages, and the associated time and cost, for exporting and importing a standard shipment of goods are listed in the summary below, along with the required documents. Table 9. 2 Summary of predefined stages and documents for trading across borders in Spain Stages to export Time (days) Cost (US$) Customs clearance and inspections 1 60 Documents preparation 5 200 Inland transportation and handling 2 800 Ports and terminal handling 2 250 Totals 10 1, 310 Stages to import Time (days) Cost (US$) Customs clearance and inspections 1 150 Documents preparation 4 150 Inland transportation and handling 2 800 Ports and terminal handling 2 300 Totals 9 1, 400 Doing Business 2015 Spain 68 Documents to export Bill of lading Commercial invoice Customs export declaration Packing list Documents to import Bill of lading Commercial invoice Customs import declaration Packing list Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 69 ENFORCING CONTRACTS Effective commercial dispute resolution has many benefits. Courts are essential for entrepreneurs because they interpret the rules of the market and protect economic rights. Efficient and transparent courts encourage new business relationships because businesses know they can rely on the courts if a new customer fails to pay. Speedy trials are essential for small enterprises, which may lack the resources to stay in business while awaiting the outcome of a long court dispute. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business measures the efficiency of the judicial system in resolving a commercial dispute before local courts. Following the step-by-step evolution of a standardized case study, it collects data relating to the time, cost and procedural complexity of resolving a commercial lawsuit. The ranking on the ease of enforcing contracts is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators: procedures, time and cost. The dispute in the case study involves the breach of a sales contract between 2 domestic businesses. The case study assumes that the court hears an expert on the quality of the goods in dispute. This distinguishes the case from simple debt enforcement. To make the data comparable across economies, Doing Business uses several assumptions about the case: The seller and buyer are located in the economy's largest business city. For the 11 economies with a population of more than 100 million, data for a second city have been added. The buyer orders custom-made goods, then fails to pay. The seller sues the buyer before a competent court. The value of the claim is 200%of the income per capita or the equivalent in local currency of USD 5, 000, whichever is greater. WHAT THE ENFORCING CONTRACTS INDICATORS MEASURE Procedures to enforce a contract through the courts (number) Steps to file and serve the case Steps for trial and judgment Steps to enforce the judgment Time required to complete procedures (calendar days) Time to file and serve the case Time for trial and obtaining judgment Time to enforce the judgment Cost required to complete procedures(%of claim) Average attorney fees Court costs Enforcement costs The seller requests a pretrial attachment to secure the claim. The dispute on the quality of the goods requires an expert opinion. The judge decides in favor of the seller; there is no appeal. The seller enforces the judgment through a public sale of the buyer's movable assets. Doing Business 2015 Spain 70 ENFORCING CONTRACTS Where does the economy stand today? How efficient is the process of resolving a commercial dispute through the courts in Spain? According to data collected by Doing Business, contract enforcement takes 510.0 days, costs 18.5%of the value of the claim and requires 40.0 procedures (see the summary at the end of this chapter for details). Most indicator sets refer to a case scenario in the largest business city of an economy, except for 11 economies for which the data are weighted a population average of the 2 largest business cities. See the chapter on distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking at the end of this profile for more details. Globally, Spain stands at 69 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of enforcing contracts (figure 10.1). ) The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful benchmarks for assessing the efficiency of contract enforcement in Spain. Figure 10.1 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of enforcing contracts Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 71 ENFORCING CONTRACTS What are the details? The indicators reported here for Spain are based on a set of specific procedural steps required to resolve a standardized commercial dispute through the courts (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators cover. These procedures, and the time and cost of completing them, are identified through study of the codes of civil procedure and other court regulations, as well as through questionnaires completed by local litigation lawyers (and, in a quarter of the economies covered by Doing Business, by judges as well). COURT NAME Claim value: EUR 44,922 Court name: Madrid Court of First Instance City: Madrid Table 10.2 Summary of time, cost and procedures for enforcing a contract in Spain Indicator Spain OECD high income average Time (days) 510 540 Filing and service 50 Trial and judgment 280 Enforcement of judgment 180 Cost(%of claim) 18.5 21.4 Attorney cost(%of claim) 12.7 Court cost(%of claim) 5 . 8 Enforcement Cost(%of claim) 0. 0 Procedures (number) 40 32 Number of procedures (without bonus points) 40 Total number of procedures (including bonus points) 40 Doing Business 2015 Spain 72 No. Procedures Filing and service: 1 Plaintiff requests payment: Plaintiff or his lawyer asks Defendant orally or in writing to comply with the contract. 2 A third person formally notifies Defendant: A third person formally notifies Defendant. A person other than the Plaintiff or his lawyer, such as a notary public, formally notifies Defendant of Plaintiff's request for payment. 3 Plaintiff hires a lawyer: Plaintiff hires a lawyer.**Plaintiff files a summons and complaint: Plaintiff files a summons and complaint with the court (orally or in writing.**Plaintiff pays court fees: Plaintiff pays court fees (e g. court duties, stamp duties, or any other type of court fees). Answer‘yes'even if Plaintiff recovers these costs. 4 Registration of court case: Registration of court case by the court administration (this can include assigning a reference number to the case.**Assignment of court case to a judge: Assignment of court case to a judge (through a random procedure, automated system, ruling of an administrative judge, court officer, etc.**Judge admits summons and complaint: Judge admits summons and complaint (after verifying the formal requirements). 5 Plaintiff requests service of process on Defendant: Plaintiff requests in writing to the court for an order that process be served on Defendant. 6 Court order for service: Upon Plaintiff's request, judge orders process be served on Defendant. 7 Delivery of summons and complaint to person authorized to perform service of process on Defendant: The judge or a court officer delivers the summons to a summoning office, officer, or authorized person (including Plaintiff), for service of process on Defendant. 8 Attempt at physical delivery: An attempt to physically deliver summons and complaint to Defendant is made.**Application for pre-judgment attachment: Plaintiff submits an application in writing for the attachment of Defendant's property prior to judgment.**Decision on pre-judgment attachment: Judge decides whether to grant Plaintiff's request for pre-judgment attachment of Defendant's property and notifies Plaintiff and Defendant of the decision. 9 Guarantees securing attached property: Plaintiff submits guarantees or bonds to secure Defendant against possible damages to attached property. 10 Pre-judgment attachment order: Defendant's property is attached prior to judgment. Attachment order either involves physical attachment, or is achieved by freezing, registering, marking, or otherwise separating and restricting Defendant's movement of specific moveable assets. Doing Business 2015 Spain 73 No. Procedures 11 Custody of assets attached prior to judgment: If physical attachment is ordered, Defendant's attached assets are placed in the custody or control of an enforcement officer or private bailiff. 12 Report on pre-judgment attachment: Court enforcement officer or private bailiff issues and delivers a report on the attachment of Defendant's property to the judge. 13 Hearing on pre-judgment attachment: A hearing takes place as a matter of law or standard practice to resolve the question of whether Defendant's assets can be attached prior to judgment. This process may include the submission of separate summons and petitions. Trial and judgment:**Defendant files preliminary objections.:Defendant presents preliminary objections to the court. Preliminary exemptions differ from answers on the merits. Examples of preliminary motions are motions to dismiss on the basis of the statute of limitations or jurisdictional objections, etc. Checke*Plaintiff's answer to preliminary motions: Plaintiff responds to preliminary motions raised by Defendant. Checked as‘yes'if preliminary motions are raised commonly (step 30) and if Plaintiff responds to them immediately. 14 Judge's resolution on preliminary objections: Judge decides on preliminary objections separately from the merits of the case. Checked as‘yes'if preliminary objections are made commonly (step 30) and if judge resolves the question before rendering his decision. 15 Defendant files an answer to Plaintiff's claim: Defendant files a written pleading which includes his answer or defense on the merits of the case (see assumption 4). 16 Framing of issues: Plaintiff and Defendant assist the court in framing issues on which evidence is to be presented.**Court appointment of independent expert: Judge appoints, either at the parties'request or at his own initiative, an independent expert to decide whether the quality of the goods Plaintiff delivered to Defendant is adequate. see assumption 5-b 17 Notification of court-appointment of independent expert: The court notifies both parties that the court is appointing an independent expert (see assumption 5-b).*Delivery of expert report by court-appointed expert: The independent expert, appointed by the court, delivers his or her expert report to the court (see assumption 5-b). 18 Pretrial conference on procedure: The judge meets with the parties to discuss procedural issues (for example which applications and motions parties intend to file, which documents parties intend to rely on, etc.).*Setting of date (s) for oral hearing or trial: Judge sets the date (s) for the oral hearing or trial. 19 Preliminary hearing aimed at preparing for the oral hearing: The judge meets the parties to make practical arrangements for the oral hearing on the merits of the case.**List of (expert) witnesses: The parties file a list of (expert) witnesses with the court (see assumption 5-a). 20 Summoning of (expert) witnesses: The court summons (expert) witnesses to appear in court for the oral hearing or trial (see assumption 5-a). Doing Business 2015 Spain 74 No. Procedures 21 Adjournments: Court proceedings are delayed because one or both parties request and obtain an adjournment to prepare for the oral hearing or trial as a matter of common practice. 22 Oral hearing (prevalent in civil law): The parties argue the merits of the case at an oral hearing before the judge. Witnesses and a court-appointed independent expert may be heard and questioned at the oral hearing. 23 Adjournments: Court proceedings are delayed because one or both parties request and obtain an adjournment during the oral hearing or trial, resulting in an additional or later trial or hearing date.**Final arguments: The parties present their final factual and legal arguments to the court either by oral presentation or by a written submission. 24 Notification of judgment in court: The parties are notified of the judgment at a court hearing. 25 Writing of judgment: The judge produces a written copy of the judgment. 26 Court notification of availability of the written judgment: The court notifies the parties that the written judgment is available at the courthouse. 27 Plaintiff receives a copy of the judgment: Plaintiff receives a copy of the written judgment which is 100%in favor of Plaintiff (see assumption 6). 28 Defendant is notified formally of the judgment: Plaintiff or court formally notifies the Defendant of the judgment. The appeal period starts to run from the day the Defendant is notified formally of the judgment. 29 Appeal period: By law Defendant has the opportunity to appeal the judgment during a specified period. Defendant decides not to appeal. Seller decides to start enforcing the judgment when the appeal period ends (see assumption 8). 30 Order for reimbursement by Defendant of Plaintiff's court fees: The judgment orders Defendant to reimburse Plaintiff for the court fees Plaintiff has advanced, because Defendant has lost the case. Enforcement of judgment:**Plaintiff hires a lawyer: Plaintiff hires a lawyer to enforce the judgment or continues to be represented by a lawyer during the enforcement of judgment phase. 31 Plaintiff retains an enforcement agent to enforce the judgment.:Plaintiff retains the services of a court enforcement officer such as a court bailiff or sheriff, or a private bailiff. 32 Publication of judgment: The judgment is published in an official journal, gazette or local newspaper.**Plaintiff requests an enforcement order: Plaintiff applies to the court to obtain the enforcement order('seal'on judgment. 33 Attachment of enforcement order to judgment: The judge attaches the enforcement order(‘seal')to the judgment. 34 Plaintiff identifies Defendant's assets for attachment: Plaintiff identifies Defendant's assets for attachment. 35 Attachment: Defendant's movable goods are attached (physically or by registering, marking or separating assets). Doing Business 2015 Spain 75 No. Procedures 36 Report on execution of attachment: A court enforcement officer or private bailiff delivers a report on the attachment of Defendant's movable goods to the judge. 37 Valuation or appraisal of attached movable goods: The court or court-appointed valuation expert evaluates the attached goods. 38 Call for public auction: Judge calls a public auction by, for example, advertising or publication in the newspapers. 39 Sale through public auction: The Defendant's movable property is sold at public auction. 40 Payment: Court orders that the proceeds of the public auction or the direct sale be delivered to Plaintiff.**Not counted in the total number of procedures. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 76 RESOLVING INSOLVENCY A robust bankruptcy system functions as a filter, ensuring the survival of economically efficient companies and reallocating the resources of inefficient ones. Fast and cheap insolvency proceedings result in the speedy return of businesses to normal operation and increase returns to creditors. By improving the expectations of creditors and debtors about the outcome of insolvency proceedings, well-functioning insolvency systems can facilitate access to finance, save more viable businesses and thereby improve growth and sustainability in the economy overall. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business studies the time, cost and outcome of insolvency proceedings involving domestic legal entities. These variables are used to calculate the recovery rate, which is recorded as cents on the dollar recouped by secured creditors through reorganization, liquidation or debt enforcement (foreclosure) proceedings. To determine the present value of the amount recovered by creditors, Doing Business uses the lending rates from the International monetary fund, supplemented with data from central banks and the Economist Intelligence Unit. In addition, Doing Business evaluates the adequacy and integrity of the existing legal framework applicable to liquidation and reorganization proceedings through the strength of insolvency framework index. The index tests whether economies adopted internationally accepted good practices in four areas: commencement of proceedings, management of debtor's assets, reorganization proceedings and creditor participation. The ranking of the Resolving Insolvency indicator is based on the recovery rate and the total score of the strength of insolvency framework index. The Resolving Insolvency indicator does not measure insolvency proceedings of individuals and financial institutions. The data are derived from survey responses by local insolvency practitioners and verified through a study of laws and regulations as well as public information on bankruptcy systems. WHAT THE RESOLVING INSOLVENCY INDICATORS MEASURE Time required to recover debt (years) Measured in calendar years Appeals and requests for extension are included Cost required to recover debt(%of debtor's estate) Measured as percentage of estate value Court fees Fees of insolvency administrators Lawyers'fees Assessors 'and auctioneers'fees Other related fees Outcome Whether business continues operating as a going concern or business assets are sold piecemeal Recovery rate for creditors Measures the cents on the dollar recovered by secured creditors Outcome for the business (survival or not) determines the maximum value that can be recovered Official costs of the insolvency proceedings are deducted Depreciation of furniture is taken into account Present value of debt recovered Strength of insolvency framework index (0-16 ) Sum of the scores of four component indices: Commencement of proceedings index (0-3) Management of debtor's assets index (0-6) Reorganization proceedings index (0-3) Creditor participation index (0 -4) Doing Business 2015 Spain 77 RESOLVING INSOLVENCY Where does the economy stand today? Combination of quality regulations and efficient practice characterize the top-performing economies. How efficient are insolvency proceedings in Spain? According to data collected by Doing Business, resolving insolvency takes 1. 5 years on average and costs 11.0%of the debtor's estate, with the most likely outcome being that the company will be sold as going concern. The average recovery rate is 71.3 cents on the dollar. Most indicator sets refer to a case scenario in the largest business city of an economy, except for 11 economies for which the data are weighted a population average of the 2 largest business cities. See the chapter on distance to frontier and ease of doing business ranking at the end of this profile for more details. According to data collected by Doing Business Spain scores 3. 0 out of 3 points on the commencement of proceedings index, 6. 0 out of 6 points on the management of debtor's assets index, 2 . 0 out of 3 points on the reorganization proceedings index, and 1. 0 out of 4 points on the creditor participation index. Spain's total score on the strength of insolvency framework index is 12.0 out of 16. Globally, Spain stands at 23 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of resolving insolvency (figure 11.1). ) The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful benchmarks for assessing the efficiency of insolvency proceedings in Spain. Figure 11.1 How Spain and comparator economies rank on the ease of resolving insolvency Doing Business 2015 Spain 78 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 79 Figure 11.2 Recovery Rate (0-100)- Spain Source: Doing Business database. Figure 11.3 Strength of insolvency framework index (0-16)- Spain Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 80 RESOLVING INSOLVENCY A well-balanced bankruptcy system distinguishes companies that are distressed financially but economically viable from inefficient companies that should be liquidated. But in some insolvency systems even viable businesses are liquidated. This is starting to change. Many recent reforms of bankruptcy laws have been aimed at helping more of the viable businesses survive. What insolvency reforms has Doing Business recorded in Spain (table 11.1? Table 11.1 How has made Spain resolving insolvency easier or not? By Doing Business report year from DB2010 to DB2015 DB year Reform DB2011 Spain amended its regulations governing insolvency proceedings with the aim of reducing the cost and time. The new regulations also introduced out-of-court workouts. DB2013 Spain strengthened its insolvency process by making workouts easier, offering more protections for refinancing agreements, allowing conversion from reorganization into liquidation at any time, allowing reliefs of the stay under certain circumstances and permitting the judge to determine whether an asset of the insolvent company is necessary for its continued operation. DB2015 Spain made resolving insolvency easier by introducing new rules for out-of-court restructuring introducing provisions applicable to prepackaged reorganizations and making insolvency proceedings more public. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www. doingbusiness. org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 81 LABOR MARKET REGULATION Doing Business measures flexibility in the regulation of employment, specifically as it affects the hiring and redundancy of workers and the rigidity of working hours. This year, for the first time, the indicators measuring flexibility in labor market regulations focus on those affecting the food retail industry, using a standardized case study of a cashier in a supermarket. Also new is that Doing Business collects data on regulations applying to employees hired through temporary-work agencies as well as on those applying to permanent employees or employees hired on fixed-term contracts. The indicators also cover additional areas of labor market regulation including social protection schemes and benefits as well as labor disputes. Over the period from 2007 to 2011 improvements were made to align the methodology for the labor market regulation indicators (formerly the employing workers indicators) with the letter and spirit of the International labour organization (ILO) conventions. Only 6 of the 188 ILO conventions cover areas measured by Doing Business: employee termination, weekend work, holiday with pay, night work, protection against unemployment and medical care and sickness benefits. The Doing Business methodology is fully consistent with these 6 conventions. The ILO conventions covering areas related to the labor market regulation indicators do not include the ILO core labor standards 8 conventions covering the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of forced labor, the abolition of child labor and equitable treatment in employment practices. Between 2009 and 2011 the World bank Group worked with a consultative group including labor lawyers, employer and employee representatives, and experts from the ILO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), civil society and the private sector to review the methodology for the labor market regulation indicators and explore future areas of research. A full report with the conclusions of the consultative group is available at: http://www. doingbusiness. org/methodology/employing-workers. Doing Business 2015 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on these indicators nor include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. Detailed data collected on labor market regulations are available on the Doing Business website (http://www. doingbusiness. org. The data on labor market regulations are based on a detailed survey of employment regulations that is completed by local lawyers and public officials. Employment laws and regulations as well as secondary sources are reviewed to ensure accuracy. To make the data comparable across economies, several assumptions about the worker and the business are used. The worker: Is a cashier in a supermarket or a grocery store Is a full-time employee Is not a member of the labor union, unless membership is mandatory The business: Is a limited liability company (or the equivalent in the economy) with 60 employees. Operates a supermarket or grocery store in the economy's largest business city. For 11 economies the data are collected also for the second largest business city. Is subject to collective bargaining agreements if such agreements cover more than 50%of the food retail sector and they apply even to firms that are not party to them. Abides by every law and regulation but does not grant workers more benefits than those mandated by law, regulation or (if applicable) collective bargaining agreements. Doing Business 2015 Spain LABOR MARKET REGULATION Employment laws are needed to protect workers from arbitrary or unfair treatment and to ensure efficient contracting between employers and workers. Many economies that changed their labor market regulation in the past 5 years did so in ways that increased labor market flexibility. What changes did Spain adopt that affected the Doing Business indicators on labor market regulation (table 12.1? Table 12.1 What changes did Spain make in terms of labor market regulation? DB year Reform DB2011 Spain reduced the notice period applicable in case of redundancy dismissals. DB2013 Spain temporarily allowed unlimited duration of fixed-term contracts. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 83 LABOR MARKET REGULATION What are the details? The data reported here for Spain are based on a detailed survey of labor market regulation that is completed by local lawyers and public officials. Employment laws and regulations as well as secondary sources are reviewed to ensure accuracy. Difficulty of hiring index Difficulty of hiring covers 4 areas:(i) whether fixed-term contracts are prohibited for permanent tasks;(ii) the maximum cumulative duration of fixed-term contracts;(iii) the minimum wage for a cashier, age 19, with 1 year of work experience; and (iv) the ratio of the minimum wage to the average value added per worker. The average value added per worker is the ratio of an economy's GNI per capita to the working-age population as a percentage of the total population. Difficulty of hiring index Data Fixed-term contracts prohibited for permanent tasks? Yes Maximum length of a single fixed-term contract (months) It depends on the type of fixed-term contract:(i) for a particular task or service, the contract terminates when the service or task is completed with a maximum duration of 36 months (that can be extended up to 12 months if provided in the relevant colle Maximum length of fixed-term contracts, including renewals (months) 12 Minimum wage applicable to the worker assumed in the case study (US$/month) 1140.02 Ratio of minimum wage to value added per worker 0. 31 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 84 LABOR MARKET REGULATION Rigidity of hours index Rigidity of hours covers 7 areas:(i) whether the workweek can extend to 50 hours or more (including overtime) for 2 months in a year to respond to a seasonal increase in workload;(ii) the maximum number of days allowed in the workweek;(iii) the premium for night work (as a percentage of hourly pay;(iv) the premium for work on a weekly rest day (as a percentage of hourly pay;(v) whether there are restrictions on night work;(vi) whether there are restrictions on weekly holiday work; and (vii) the average paid annual leave for workers with 1 year of tenure, 5 years of tenure and 10 years of tenure. Rigidity of hours index Data 50-hour workweek allowed for 2 months a year in case of a seasonal increase in workload? Yes Maximum working days per week 5. 5 Premium for night work(%of hourly pay) 25%Premium for work on weekly rest day(%of hourly pay) 0%Major restrictions on night work? Yes Major restrictions on weekly holiday? No Paid annual leave for a worker with 1 year of tenure (in working days) 22.0 Paid annual leave for a worker with 5 years of tenure (in working days) 22.0 Paid annual leave for a worker with 10 years of tenure (in working days) 22.0 Paid annual leave (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years of tenure, in working days) 22.0 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 85 LABOR MARKET REGULATION Difficulty of redundancy index Difficulty of redundancy index looks at 9 questions:(i) what the length is in months of the maximum probationary period;(ii) whether redundancy is disallowed as a basis for terminating workers;(iii) whether the employer needs to notify a third party (such as a government agency) to terminate 1 redundant worker;(iv) whether the employer needs to notify a third party to terminate a group of 9 redundant workers;(v) whether the employer needs approval from a third party to terminate 1 redundant worker;(vi) whether the employer needs approval from a third party to terminate a group of 9 redundant workers;(vii) whether the law requires the employer to reassign or retrain a worker before making the worker redundant;(viii) whether priority rules apply for redundancies; and (ix) whether priority rules apply for reemployment. Difficulty of redundancy index Data Maximum length of probationary period (months) 2. 0 Dismissal due to redundancy allowed by law? Yes Third-party notification if 1 worker is dismissed? Yes Third-party approval if 1 worker is dismissed? No Third-party notification if 9 workers are dismissed? Yes Third-party approval if 9 workers are dismissed? No Retraining or reassignment obligation before redundancy? No Priority rules for redundancies? No Priority rules for reemployment? No Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 86 LABOR MARKET REGULATION Redundancy cost Redundancy cost measures the cost of advance notice requirements, severance payments and penalties due when terminating a redundant worker, expressed in weeks of salary. The average value of notice requirements and severance payments applicable to a worker with 1 year of tenure, a worker with 5 years and a worker with 10 years is considered. One month is recorded as 4 and 1/3 weeks. Redundancy cost indicator (in salary weeks) Data Notice period for redundancy dismissal for a worker with 1 year of tenure 2. 1 Notice period for redundancy dismissal for a worker with 5 years of tenure 2. 1 Notice period for redundancy dismissal for a worker with 10 years of tenure 2. 1 Notice period for redundancy dismissal (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years of tenure) 2. 1 Severance pay for redundancy dismissal for a worker with 1 year of tenure 2. 9 Severance pay for redundancy dismissal for a worker with 5 years of tenure 14.3 Severance pay for redundancy dismissal for a worker with 10 years of tenure 28.6 Severance pay for redundancy dismissal (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years of tenure) 15.2 Source: Doing Business database. Social protection schemes and benefits & Labor disputes Doing Business collects data on the existence of unemployment protection schemes as well as data on whether employers are required legally to provide health insurance for employees with permanent contracts. Doing Business also assesses the mechanisms available to resolve labor disputes. More specifically, it collects data on what courts would be competent to hear labor disputes and whether the competent court is specialized in resolving labor disputes. Social protection schemes and benefits & Labor disputes indicator Data Availability of unemployment protection scheme? Yes Health insurance existing for permanent employees? Yes Availability of courts or court sections specializing in labor disputes? Yes Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2015 Spain 87 Doing Business 2015 Spain 88 DISTANCE TO FRONTIER AND EASE OF DOING BUSINESS RANKING This year's report presents results for 2 aggregate measures: the distance to frontier score and the ease of doing business ranking, which for the first time this year is based on the distance to frontier score. The ease of doing business ranking compares economies with one another; the distance to frontier score benchmarks economies with respect to regulatory best practice, showing the absolute distance to the best performance on each Doing Business indicator. When compared across years, the distance to frontier score shows how much the regulatory environment for local entrepreneurs in an economy has changed over time in absolute terms, while the ease of doing business ranking can show only how much the regulatory environment has changed relative to that in other economies. Distance to Frontier The distance to frontier score captures the gap between an economy's performance and a measure of best practice across the entire sample of 31 indicators for 10 Doing Business topics (the labor market regulation indicators are excluded). For starting a business, for example, Canada and New zealand have the smallest number of procedures required (1), and New zealand the shortest time to fulfill them (0. 5 days). Slovenia has the lowest cost (0. 0), and Australia, Colombia and 110 other economies have paid no-in minimum capital requirement (table 15.1 in the Doing Business 2015 report). Calculation of the distance to frontier score Calculating the distance to frontier score for each economy involves 2 main steps. First, individual component indicators are normalized to a common unit where each of the 31 component indicators y (except for the total tax rate) is rescaled using the linear transformation (worst-y)/(worst-frontier. In this formulation the frontier represents the best performance on the indicator across all economies since 2005 or the third year after data for the indicator were collected for the first time. For legal indicators such as those on getting credit or protecting minority investors, the frontier is set at the highest possible value. For the total tax rate, consistent with the use of a threshold in calculating the rankings on this indicator, the frontier is defined as the total tax rate at the 15th percentile of the overall distribution for all years included in the analysis. For the time to pay taxes the frontier is defined as the lowest time recorded among all economies that levy the 3 major taxes: profit tax, labor taxes and mandatory contributions, and value added tax (VAT) or sales tax. In addition, the cost to export and cost to import for each year are divided by the GDP deflator, to take the general price level into account when benchmarking these absolute-cost indicators across economies with different inflation trends. The base year for the deflator is 2013 for all economies. In the same formulation, to mitigate the effects of extreme outliers in the distributions of the rescaled data for most component indicators (very few economies need 700 days to complete the procedures to start a business but many need 9 days), the worst performance is calculated after the removal of outliers. The definition of outliers is based on the distribution for each component indicator. To simplify the process, 2 rules were defined: the 95th percentile is used for the indicators with the most dispersed distributions (including time, cost, minimum capital and number of payments to pay taxes), and the 99th percentile is used for number of procedures and number of documents to trade. No outlier was removed for component indicators bound by definition or construction, including legal index scores (such as the depth of credit information index, extent of conflict of interest regulation index and strength of insolvency framework index) and the recovery rate (figure 15.1 in the Doing Business 2015 report). Second, for each economy the scores obtained for individual indicators are aggregated through simple averaging into one distance to frontier score, first for each topic and then across all 10 topics: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. More complex aggregation methods such as principal components and unobserved components yield a ranking nearly identical to the simple average used by Doing Business6. Thus Doing Business uses the simplest 6 See Djankov, Manraj and others (2005. Principal components and unobserved components methods yield a ranking nearly identical to Doing Business 2015 Spain 89 method: weighting all topics equally and, within each topic, giving equal weight to each of the topic components7. An economy's distance to frontier score is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the worst performance and 100 the frontier. All distance to frontier calculations are based on a maximum of 5 decimals. However, indicator ranking calculations and the ease of doing business ranking calculations are based on 2 decimals. The difference between an economy's distance to frontier score in any previous year and its score in 2014 illustrates the extent to which the economy has closed the gap to the regulatory frontier over time. And in any given year the score measures how far an economy is from the best performance at that time. Treatment of the total tax rate This year, for the first time, the total tax rate component of the paying taxes indicator set enters the distance to frontier calculation in a different way than any other indicator. The distance to frontier score obtained for the total tax rate is transformed in a nonlinear fashion before it enters the distance to frontier score for paying taxes. As a result of the nonlinear transformation, an increase in the total tax rate has a smaller impact on the distance to frontier score for the total tax rate and therefore on the distance to frontier score for paying taxes for economies with a below-average total tax rate than it would have in the calculation done in previous years (line B is smaller than line A in figure 15.2 of the Doing Business 2015 report). And for economies with an extreme total tax rate (a rate that is very high relative to the average), an increase has a greater impact on both these distance to frontier scores than before (line D is bigger than line C in figure 15.2 of the Doing Business 2015 report. The nonlinear transformation is not based on any economic theory of an optimal tax rate that minimizes distortions or maximizes efficiency in an economy's that from the simple average method because both these methods assign roughly equal weights to the topics, since the pairwise correlations among indicators do not differ much. An alternative to the simple average method is to give different weights to the topics, depending on which are considered of more or less importance in the context of a specific economy. 7 For getting credit, indicators are weighted proportionally, according to their contribution to the total score, with a weight of 60%assigned to the strength of legal rights index and 40%to the depth of credit information index. Indicators for all other topics are assigned equal weights overall tax system. Instead, it is mainly empirical in nature. The nonlinear transformation along with the threshold reduces the bias in the indicator toward economies that do need not to levy significant taxes on companies like the Doing Business standardized case study company because they raise public revenue in other ways for example, through taxes on foreign companies, through taxes on sectors other than manufacturing or from natural resources (all of which are outside the scope of the methodology). In addition, it acknowledges the need of economies to collect taxes from firms. Calculation of scores for economies with 2 cities covered For each of the 11 economies for which a second city was added in this year's report, the distance to frontier score is calculated as the population-weighted average of the distance to frontier scores for the 2 cities covered (table 12.1). ) This is done for the aggregate score, the scores for each topic and the scores for all the component indicators for each topic. Table 12.1 Weights used in calculating the distance to frontier scores for economies with 2 cities covered Source: United nations, Department of Economic and Social affairs, Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects, 2014 Revision. http://esa. un. org/unpd/wup/CD-ROM/Default. aspx. Economycity Weight(%)Dhaka78chittagong22são Paulo61rio de Janeiro39shanghai55beijing45mumbai47delhi53jakarta78surabaya22tokyo65osaka35mex co City83monterrey17lagos77kano23karachi65lahore35moscow70st. Petersburg30new York60los Angeles40mexiconigeriapakistanrussian Federationunited Statesjapanbangladeshbrazilchinaindiaindonesia Doing Business 2015 Spain 90 Economies that improved the most across 3 or more Doing Business topics in 2013/14 Doing Business 2015 uses a simple method to calculate which economies improved the ease of doing business the most. First, it selects the economies that in 2013/14 implemented regulatory reforms making it easier to do business in 3 or more of the 10 topics included in this year's aggregate distance to frontier score. Twenty-one economies meet this criterion: Azerbaijan; Benin; the Democratic Republic of congo; Côte d'ivoire; the Czech republic; Greece; India; Ireland; Kazakhstan; Lithuania; the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Poland; Senegal; the Seychelles; Spain; Switzerland; Taiwan, China; Tajikistan; Togo; Trinidad and tobago; and the United arab emirates. Second, Doing Business sorts these economies on the increase in their distance to frontier score from the previous year using comparable data. Selecting the economies that implemented regulatory reforms in at least 3 topics and had the biggest improvements in their distance to frontier scores is intended to highlight economies with ongoing, broad-based reform programs. The improvement in the distance to frontier score is used to identify the top improvers because this allows a focus on the absolute improvement in contrast with the relative improvement shown by a change in rankings that economies have made in their regulatory environment for business. Ease of Doing Business ranking The ease of doing business ranking ranges from 1 to 189. The ranking of economies is determined by sorting the aggregate distance to frontier scores, rounded to 2 decimals. Doing Business 2015 Spain 91 RESOURCES ON THE DOING BUSINESS WEBSITE Current features News on the Doing Business project http://www. doingbusiness. org Rankings How economies rank from 1 to 189 http://www. doingbusiness. org/rankings Data All the data for 189 economies topic rankings, indicator values, lists of regulatory procedures and details underlying indicators http://www. doingbusiness. org/data Reports Access to Doing Business reports as well as subnational and regional reports, reform case studies and customized economy and regional profiles http://www. doingbusiness. org/reports Methodology The methodologies and research papers underlying Doing Business http://www. doingbusiness. org/methodology Research Abstracts of papers on Doing Business topics and related policy issues http://www. doingbusiness. org/research Doing Business reforms Short summaries of DB2015 business regulation reforms, lists of reforms since DB2008 and a ranking simulation tool http://www. doingbusiness. org/reforms Historical data Customized data sets since DB2004 http://www. doingbusiness. org/custom-query Law library Online collection of business laws and regulations relating to business http://www. doingbusiness. org/law -library Contributors More than 10,700 specialists in 189 economies who participate in Doing Business http://www. doingbusiness. org/contributors/doing-business Entrepreneurship data Data on business density (number of newly registered companies per 1, 000 working-age people) for 139 economies http://www. doingbusiness. org/data/exploretopics/entrepreneurship Distance to frontier Data benchmarking 189 economies to the frontier in regulatory practice http://www. doingbusiness. org/data/distance-to-frontier Information on good practices Showing where the many good practices identified by Doing Business have been adopted http://www. doingbusiness. org /data/good-practice Doing Business Iphone app Doing Business at a Glance presenting the full report, rankings and highlights for each topic for the iphone, ipad and ipod touch http://www. doingbusiness. org/specialfeatures/iphone Doing Business 2015 Spain 92

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