Menuda cara. The Tax Agency has cast its nets on one of the most common and controversial operations under the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF) of the Canary Islands. Official sources confirmed this January 2026 that a financial scheme has been dismantled with a multimillion-dollar settlement against a wholesale operator at the Port of Las Palmas that aimed to ‘disguise’ the sale of vast quantities of fish as a simple telematic service to pay only 4% in taxes.
And out came the clever one. The defense of the entity tried to convince officials that its activity should be classified as a ‘provision of telematic services’, arguing that all management, administration, and contracting were carried out from its headquarters in Las Palmas. They claimed that by using information technologies to coordinate the triangulation, the operation earned the right to lower taxation, regardless of where the fish was located.
The resolution leaves no doubts about the magnitude of the business. Although it does not break down the weight gram by gram, the inspection file reveals that the company moved tons of fish, frozen, fresh, and live seafood. The scheme was massive: 90% of all merchandise was loaded into containers directly in Mauritania and headed for Japan or Europe. For the Tax Agency, this fish is ‘ghost’ because, for tax incentive purposes, it never existed in the islands.
As for the money, the figures that officials handle are the core of the punishment. The tax authorities have proceeded to modify the taxable base for the years 2016 and 2017, which represents a direct blow to the company’s profitability. The inspection detected that the company was not charging a small commission for intermediation but was keeping the entire commercial margin of the sale: the multimillion-dollar difference between the purchase price in Nouadhibou and the selling price in the Japanese market.
The key to the tax blow lies in the recalculation of the tax rate. By moving from 4% (reduced ZEC rate) to 25% (general Corporate Tax rate) on that 90% of ‘out-of-zone’ sales, the accumulated tax debt between both years skyrockets. The Tax Agency has made it clear that it is not enough to manage the paperwork from an office on Avenida de los Consignatarios in Las Palmas; if the fish does not smell of Puerto de La Luz, the tax benefit disappears.
The court concludes that the company acted in ‘its own name’ and assumed the total risk of the merchandise, which makes it a seller of physical goods and not a service office. With this ruling, the Tax Agency sends a warning to navigators: the triangulation of fish from Africa to Asia or the Peninsula is only legally ‘ZEC’ if the container touches a Canarian dock. Otherwise, the tax savings end up at the bottom of the sea.
The case analyzed affects a company engaged in wholesale trade operating under an international triangulation scheme. The company purchased large fish catches in Mauritania and sold them directly to clients in Japan, the peninsula, and the rest of Europe. The legal problem arose when it was demonstrated that 90% of the containers traveled directly from the Mauritanian port to the final destination, without the product being made available, stored, or dispatched from any Canarian port.
The AEAT Inspection in the Canary Islands rejected that these sales could benefit from the reduced Corporate Tax. The tax authorities argued that, according to Article 44 of Law 19/1994, for a transfer of goods to be considered ‘carried out in the ZEC area,’ the merchandise must have a real physical connection to the territory. The Tax Agency emphasized that the tax benefit is designed to attract tangible logistical and economic activity, not to serve as a refuge for income generated entirely abroad by goods circulating through routes outside the archipelago.
The doctrine has been clear: the trade of fish is a delivery of tangible goods, not a service. The Court emphasizes that the use of the internet or emails is now a common tool for any business and does not have the ‘magic power’ to transform a physical transaction into an intangible one. The ruling warns that accepting the company’s thesis would empty the law of content and allow for unfair competition, where it would be sufficient to have a minimal office in the islands to evade taxes on global operations.
News written by José L. Jiménez. Edited and verified by Gara H. Vega. Cross-checked information without institutional filters. This analysis has not been financed by official advertising or conditioned by lobby interests.
