The Benicássim town council lodged an appeal in cassation before the SC in order to determine how the annulment of an urban planning law affects the settlements made for the IIVTNU concept.
The SC focuses on determining whether it is possible to challenge the IIVTNU settlement by questioning the cadastral value determined by a final act in cadastral management proceedings.
The general rule is that the cadastral value that has become definitive in the area of cadastral management cannot be disputed in tax administration. However, there are exceptional situations that allow this rule to yield to higher principles that must prevail over the principle of legal certainty.
The determination of the cadastral value cannot remain immovable when supervening situations, such as judicial and/or jurisprudential declarations or legislative changes, reflect the incorrectness of the cadastral value. The administration cannot continue to issue settlements that are unassailable on the basis of the distinction between cadastral management and tax management. If an incorrect tax base is applied, the principle of economic capacity is violated, as a non-existent or fictitious wealth is taxed, for example, if what is rustic is taxed as urban.
In view of this exceptional situation, the general system that distributes competences between cadastral management and tax management must be reinterpreted and its rigidity must be refined so that in tax management and in legal challenges, the legal conformity of the cadastral value, in its consideration as the taxable base of the tax, can be examined.
For all these reasons, the SC allows the use of the tax administration procedure to analyse the cadastral valuation when exceptional circumstances so require.