The Treasury assumes a good part of the package of tax proposals that Sumar put on the table for the negotiation of the 2025 budgets, and will remove the tax exemption for private insurance to which the tax on insurance premiums will begin to apply (IPS). .in 8%. With this, the government intends to gain around 750 million euros per year, in the midst of a battle with insurance companies for the renewal of the Muface agreement.
Asisa, DKV and Adeslas closed the door to the government on November 5, leaving the competition void and leaving – if this is not remedied – a million and a half civil servants without mutual insurance. The companies consider the offer launched to be insufficient, and demand – at least – an improvement of 100 million euros to bring the positions closer together.
The agreement, signed on Monday by the coalition partners, tends to worsen the situation. He defends that the exemption enjoyed by private insurance companies “it has a clear regressive bias, fundamentally benefiting high-income individuals and families”. “Those who have the most will pay more,” second vice president Yolanda Díaz said yesterday.
“We do not understand that they are talking about high incomes, when 30% of the Spanish population has private insurance,” defend sources in the sector. According to data from the employers’ association UnespaIn Spain there are 12.4 million people benefiting from a policy of this type. “These are people with very diverse socio-economic profiles who do not consume public health services or do so to a much lesser extent,” the employers’ union defended in a press release yesterday. The sector has already started to make numbers.
Businesses recognize that they will pass on the impact of the tax to their users. “This will make insurance more expensive,” they say. The average premium in Spain is between 38.3 and 89.7 euros. A price which – if the measure succeeds – will increase by 8%, causing the withdrawal of many policyholders. “An increase of 8% would lead many policyholders to terminate their health contract,” fear the same sources. Added to this are the consequences that this will have, not only on the figures of insurance companies, but also on public health itself. Insurance companies are already predicting that the flight of customers under the umbrella of public coverage will “worsen the current situation of collapse and waiting lists.” This could lead to an oversized private health system, leaving “some hospitals in complicated financial viability situations,” they say. But this measure is doomed to failure. The PNV confirmed yesterday that its group would not support the agreement to remove the tax exemption, because in Euskadi there are “many people” subscribed to these insurances.
Parliamentary imbalance
The tax reform project must, however, benefit from the support of the investiture bloc to continue its development. To achieve this, the PSOE will defend that its content adapts to the transposition of the European directive.. However, The text provides not only for an increase in taxation on private insurance, but also for an increase in the maximum rate of personal income tax on capital income.l, an increase in VAT to 21% on apartments for tourist use, the creation of ecotaxes on jets and luxury items, or even the elimination of exemptions for real estate investment trusts for which an elimination of the bonus is proposed to 95% in ITP and AJD. A catalog of measures that could also be rejected by the Junts and Basque nationalists.
Along the way, Sumar transferred other tax requests to Montero. The agreement does not provide for the removal of the exemption from paying VAT for private education requested by Yolanda Díaz. The measure aimed to add 1.945 million to the annual revenues of the Tax Agency. Nor the attempt to apply a tax on the “excessive margins of large food companies”, which the group has been demanding for months.
It should be remembered that Spain is obliged to approve a tax reform before the end of the year. The government is committed to promoting the text in the structural budget plan that it sent to the European Commission in mid-October and with which it aims to improve the ratio of income to GDP by 0.3 points between years 2025 and 2031.
La Moncloa hopes that Brussels will approve the document sent a month ago, approving the budgetary roadmap to guarantee compliance with European rules. Furthermore, the fifth disbursement of European funds, of 7 billion, also depends on the reform.
