The Spanish Supreme Court, in its judgment no. 1122/2024 of 25 June 2024 (cassation appeal 7845/2022), confirms —and the doctrine is consolidated in subsequent pronouncements— that the judicial authorisation of entry into the taxpayer’s home under article 113 of the General Tax Act (LGT) requires specific and individualised reasoning. That reasoning is not exhausted in the generic authorisation to enter the physical home: where the entry is projected over digital repositories —emails, servers, data stored in the cloud— that affect other rights of article 18 of the Spanish Constitution (secrecy of communications, informational privacy), the judicial order must autonomously motivate the purpose, necessity and proportionality of access to each one of them. The generic authorisation of the physical home does not, by itself, legitimise the massive imaging of digital information.
The practical consequence, for defensive purposes, is operative. Where AEAT seeks authorisation to enter the taxpayer’s home, it is advisable to examine in detail the scope of the judicial order granted and, where applicable, to formulate opposition to those aspects whose specific reasoning is conspicuously absent. During the action itself, it is also advisable to preserve a rigorous documentary trail —copy of the order, record of the entry, identification of the devices on which the action took place, scope of the imaging carried out, reservations made at the time—. That documentation is the basis of any subsequent challenge, both for defect of motivation of the order and for excess in the scope of the administrative action.
Full analysis in → The right to deny the tax Administration entry into the home: the specific reasoning of the judicial order also reaches digital access