at stake Are thousands of euros. The of now and of tomorrow. For the moment, the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) establishes that the Tax Agency must return 32.880 euros Mara Torres, the plaintiff. But it can serve as an example for dozens of authors. The journalist and writer, claimed a 40% reduction in taxes on 150.250 € that he received for being a finalist for the Planeta prize, with The imaginary life, in 2012. However, the Treasury is not allowed to include that discount in your income tax of that year: he defended that it was not appropriate, since in exchange for the award, the editorial Planet gets the assignment of the copyright in the work. That is to say, considered the prize as a commercial operation, that would not justify tax benefit whatsoever. After the ruling, which has had access to THE COUNTRY, it is an appeal to the Supreme court that the Treasury think exhaust. Among other things, because the Planet is one of the literary prizes best equipped in the world: 600,000 euros to the winner and 150,000 on the second. It was difficult to believe that the winners come not to claim the same as Torres.
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The sentence, advanced by The Confidential, clarifies a legal division of the awards, which also correspond fiscalidades different. An award presented as such, without further parallel issues, you receive a powerful support. “In the event that there occurs any consideration […], the exemption of the perceived economically is total,” says the ruling. “The rest of the awards, in which there is a consideration, that is usually the transfer of exclusive exploitation of the literary work and of intellectual property rights on the same, they could enjoy the 40% reduction,” continues the text. For the TSJM, the Planet would fall into this second category.
The criterion that has been applied by the Tax Agency until now, in contrast, concluded that the prestigious award and its endowment accounted a remuneration in exchange of the transfer of copyright. In that system, was not intended the exemption of the 40%: the Treasury seems to interpret the award as a sort of curtain, behind which there is an exchange in which everyone wins. The author receives a prize and glory; the publisher publishes the work to be victorious.
So in the background, after the pure question monetary, the sentence poses a question the more abstract and long-lasting: what a literary award is a seal of quality that encumbra an essential piece, or just a marketing tool with which the editorial tab to an author? For years, the second definition has haunted like a phantom each delivery of the prize Planet. The last, few weeks ago, was not an exception: the publishing house has awarded to Javier Cercas, and Manuel Vilas, two writers from Penguin Random House that landed in a big way in the home rival Planet with these awards.
The TSJM, in a certain way, gives a boost also to the credibility of the recognition granted by Planet. The statement notes that, from the moment in which it participates, the author accepts the bases of the award and, therefore, “transfer of exclusive exploitation of the work”. However, “the cause of the prize has to be a pre-judgment of the jury, and not a prior transfer of rights is agreed with the editorial, so that the assignment of rights is a mere effect of the award, but not its cause, and it is thus regulated so that it is not a payment from the publisher to the author, disguised as a prize,” reads the statement.
The text also cites a previous decision of the high Court of Galicia, which remained “the same criteria” and granted the exemption to Marta Rivera de la Cruz, a finalist of the Planet of 2006 with a time of wonders and current minister of Culture of the Community of Madrid. The sentence was issued in February 2012, just in time for Mara Torres the discovery. Embarked on the same path and has also come out victorious. So two authors: did not earn the Planet by a hair, but his demand against the Treasury. For other writers, of course, is a hint sweet.
