Baptiste Pons retweetledi
I just found my favorite Spanish 🇪🇸 tax authorities story ever
Paco Vallejo was a professional chess player. Top 40 in the world; which is a CRAZY achievement
Then Hacienda decided he owed them €650,000... For money he never made
See, Paco played online poker in 2011, for fun. He ended up losing 5,715€, which, you know, no big deal
But Hacienda took that and decided to ruin his life
See, in 2011 there was an old Spanish law that taxed poker "winnings" at 47% but didn't allow you to deduct losses. So if you made €86,000 and lost €92,000, the government ignored the losses and taxed you on the full €86,000.
This law was insane. Everyone knew it was insane. So in 2012 they changed it
But they didn't make the change retroactive
Five years later, in 2016, Hacienda sends Vallejo a letter. They've looked back at his 2011 poker account, and saw he had gross winnings of €86,482. They ignored that he lost €92,197. They did the math under the old law and told him he owed €550,000 in taxes
For money he never made, and for a loss he actually took
Paco is Spain's #1 chess player. One of the world's best. This wasn't some hidden offshore scheme, either; his poker account was completely transparent, digitally recorded. They could see every hand. They knew he lost money
They didn't care
The appeals process was designed to break him:
❌ Years of lawyers
❌ Legal fees destroying his savings
❌ Every day, the threat of seizure hanging over him
❌ His mother got sick during this period. He couldn't help her because Hacienda had already taken almost all his money
The stress was so severe he withdrew from a major international chess tournament. First time in his professional career
He was 35 years old, and one of Spain's greatest talents. And the government was treating him like a criminal for playing poker once and losing money
So he left Spain
Eventually he won the case, which took him six years of his life. But here's the thing:
❌Hacienda didn't compensate him for the legal costs
❌ Didn't compensate him for the years of stress
❌ Didn't compensate him for the tournaments he cancelled, the image damage, the psychological destruction
He just got his initial money back, and he had to move on
This is what I mean when I talk about Spain's tax system. It's not just "unfair." It's designed to assume guilt and make you prove innocence, even when the digital evidence is crystal clear
Funny enough, Paco released an interview last week, and it turns out he's living in Paraguay now, too. I'd love to meet him; so Paco, if you're reading this, let's grab a beer!
Anyway, that's why Paco left, and why thousands of others leave too
And that's what I help people navigate
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