The Directorate-General for Taxes, in binding consultation V0127-26 of 27 January 2026, confirms that the total division of an asset-holding company aimed at simplifying succession and facilitating generational handover qualifies as a valid economic reason for the purposes of article 89.2 of the Corporate Income Tax Act (LIS) and may avail itself of the special tax neutrality regime of Chapter VII of Title VII —commonly designated as the FEAC regime—. The doctrine fits the consolidated line of the Spanish Supreme Court (judgments 2508/2016 and 1503/2022) and the criterion of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Euro Park Service (case C-14/16, 2017), where it was established that the succession and family-reorganisation purpose is, by itself, a legitimate economic objective.
The practical consequence admits an operative caveat. The characterisation of a valid economic reason may be compromised if the division is followed by operations evidencing that the restructuring was not the real objective, but an instrumental step towards another tax advantage —immediate transfer of the participations received to a third party, dissolution without liquidation shortly after the division, any movement suggesting that the neutrality of the FEAC regime has been used spuriously—. It is therefore advisable to plan the operation alongside a reasonable horizon of continuity and to document contemporaneously the succession purpose that justifies it.
Full analysis in → The total division to facilitate generational handover is a valid economic reason for the purposes of the FEAC regime of the Corporate Income Tax