The Government and the Junts propose an unequal distribution of the collection of their bank tax between the autonomous communities, which would benefit more those with a higher volume of GDP, such as Catalonia. The transactional amendment, which will be submitted to a vote in the plenary session of Congress on Thursday and to which you had access elEconomista.esadvocates a distribution of income between the regions of the common regime “according to their gross domestic product”. That is to say, Madrid, Catalonia or Andalusia will receive more than 50% of the total collection; On the contrary, others like La Rioja, Cantabria or Extremadura will get the least resources. However, the Executive could choose to distribute the collection based on GDP per capita – just as the financing system does – which would also have the effect of would guarantee greater resources to Madrid, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. This novelty would require express regulation of tax in the form of transferred tribute, according to Jorge Onrubia, professor of public finance at Complutense University and associated researcher at Fedea.
This distribution comes in the middle of a debate – buried by current events – on the reform of regional financing and the concessions granted to Catalonia. The single financing would mean – according to Funcas calculations – a transfer of resources to the Catalan treasury of 2.641 million with a share calculated according to its GDP; and 4.519 million if estimated based on the population of the community. To this would be added the corresponding tax declarations. “The amount collected will be made available annually to the Autonomous Communities of the common system through treasury operations,” specifies the document.
In this way, Junts – one of the signatories of the amendment – marks a new goal in Catalonia, just as the PNV did after obtaining that the provincial treasuries could manage the tax. This will allow the government to Imanol Pradales has the power to modify prices, conditions of application such as exemptions, or even apply quota bonuses“something that seems like Basque nationalists could have considered leaving BBVA and other entities of the old savings banks, like Kutxabank, out of tax,” according to Onrubia.
Recall that the Tax Agency managed to add 1.695 million in 2024 for the temporary tax on financial entities, which did not envisage any attribution to the LACC. The amount could be much higher if the pact between Moncloa and Carles Puigdemont’s men succeeds. The new tax establishes a rate scale that reaches 7% for banks whose interest and commission margins exceed 5 billion euros. According to the results recorded in 2023, the three largest – CaixaBank, Santander and BBVA – are in this section. The language establishes four other steps. It sets a rate of 6% for bases above 3 billion, which could affect Banco Sabadell. Behind him he establishes three others. A rate of 4.8% for bases over 1,500 million, 3.5% from 750 million, and 1% for those below. Remember that the temporary tax established a single rate of 4.8% from 850 million annual income.
To this would be added the income of foreign entities with activities in Spain. The new tax project broadens its scope of action on these banks, which could notably affect BNP Paribas. The French entity is attributed with a turnover of more than 800 million euros in Spain.
Hidden war of the Catalan independence movement
“Tomorrow, in the second vote, we will see if some Catalan parties stay with the right and the Spanish bench or stand with Catalonia,” said the spokesperson for the post-convergents in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, yesterday. The debate on tax reform has widened – even more – the gap between Junts and ERC, who accuse the first of being the “lackeys” of energy companies, after having forced the withdrawal of this tax as part of the fiscal package that will be presented today. in his second and final vote.
Its approval, however, depends on Podemos, the only group which has not yet confirmed its support for the text. This is the last thread that remains to be tied to the team of María Jesús Montero, who arrives today at the plenary session of the Congress exhausted after the network of agreements woven in recent days, on the left and the right. If the reform is carried out, Pedro Sánchez will obtain a great parliamentary victory, even if he had – initially – everything against him. On the contrary, the Popular Party, which has tried in recent days to influence the fragility of support available to the Government, believes that the reform could move forward.
