The initiative has 139 senators voted in support, 107 voted against, and 12 abstained. Since the proceedings in the Upper House have been completed and no amendments have been incorporated through amendments, the text will not need to be sent back to the Congress of Deputies, so the norm will be ready to go into effect the next day. Published in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
The bill suffered Different changes in the handling of the Congress of Deputies. One of the main changes was around the 4.8% tax on bank interest and commissions, as a proposal from PNV was finally included for the tax to affect the activities of banks in Spain.
With this amendment, the nationality of the banks was not specified, therefore PSOE and Unidas Podemos did not find it necessary to include in the articles any longer, especially in the explanatory statement, to clearly indicate the foreign institutions operating in our country. If it is made clear that foreign banks doing business in Spain are also affected by the tax, according to parliamentary sources consulted by Europa Press.
Energy tax squeezes regulated income
Regarding energy tax, income from regulated activities will be excluded from taxable billing. In this way, the original text is changed so that the tax does not affect revenues where supply is at a regulated pricerate of last resort (TUR) for gas, bottled LPG and tubular LPG, as in the case of PVPC for electricity.
In addition, the exemption includes regulated revenues from electricity and natural gas transmission and distribution networks and, in the case of generation with regulated pricing and surcharges in non-peninsula, all revenues from facilities, including from the market, and, respectively, economic dispatch.
Same time, Another transaction change was introduced so that the tax only applies to activities carried out by companies in the sector in Spain.
It will be evaluated whether the taxes are permanent.
When new taxes on banking, energy and great wealth expire, it is expected It will be investigated whether your application can be made permanent by evaluating it.
In the case of tax on large fortunes, it is intended to tax assets over three million euros so that they are not exempted from regional governments’ bonuses.
This tax will be 1.7% for assets between 3 and 5.3 million euros.; 2.1% for assets between 5.3 and 10.6 million euros and 3.5% for assets over 10.6 million euros.
In addition, the rules in the wealth tax law will be applied in determining the taxable base of this tax, so that a deduction for a minimum exemption of 700,000 Euros will be included.
It should not be forgotten that the purpose of the Treasury is to collect these taxes from 2023 and enter them in 2024, taking into account the 2022 revenues. continue or not.
AKP warns against fraud
The People’s Group in the Senate decided to veto the bill. With the new taxes rejected in the Upper House, because according to him the bill involving the three new taxes comes up in legislative scam and parliamentary procedure.
Legislative fraud, they claim, occurs when a bill “repeatedly accepted as a carefully crafted project within the Government” is processed through emergency means. In this sense, they report that the PP has avoided all internal legality checks and neglected mandatory procedures for public consultation and disclosure.
PP also considers it to be a fraud in parliamentary procedure to be discussed in the Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation Commission instead of the Treasury and Public Functions commission.
“Deep down, this is a huge political fraud, because with this so-called conflict between the poor and the rich, they try to hide what really happens to the huge amount of public revenue the government collects.” He was criticized by the popular group in the Senate.
According to Ciudadanos, the current bill, which aims to approve exceptional and temporarily limited individual taxes on the energy and banking sector, has “extraordinarily departed from the reasonable and, of course, within the parameters proposed by the European Commission”.