The bank tax will remain in place for the next few years… Or rather that is what the Government wants. The Executive has already proposed to Congress the continuity of the tax, arguing that The temporary tax activated by the war in Ukraine did not harm the entities. The sector obviously does not share the Executive’s point of view and has already warned that it will do everything possible to ensure that this measure is not applied.
The government wants to deal with new bank tax as part of amendments to the bill aimed at requiring multinational companies to pay a minimum tax. In these, presented by the Socialist Group under the direction of the Ministry of Finance, the arguments of the Executive for the creation of the new tax figure are specified.
The Government considers that “the prior application of the temporary tax constitutes the appropriate context to assess the potential impact of the tax”. And, from his point of view, “No relevant adverse reactions were observed which could be attributed to the existence” of the temporary rate.
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On the other hand, according to the amendments (to which EL ESPAÑOL-Invertia had access), the evolution of interest rates “has experienced a slight decrease in 2024, compared to 2023”, but continues “still well above 2022 and previous year levels“.
Furthermore, “the results of banking entities continued to increase”. Reference is made to the accounts presented in the second quarter of this year, which include “an increase in both interest margin and net fee incomeas well as the result as a whole.
In other words, the Executive considers that banking results “were not diminished by the requirement of the temporary tax.”
Likewise, in the Treasury amendment it is stated that the effective corporate tax burden borne by the financial sector is “below the nominal 30% corporate tax to which it is subject”.
From the Government’s point of view, these arguments “justify the introduction of a tax ensuring that the sector contributes, according to its economic capacity, in a fair and equitable manner to support public spending.
As this newspaper has already reported, the tax will be dedicated to taxing the interest margin and commissions obtained by credit institutions and branches of foreign entities in Spain for the activity they carry out in our country.
In any case, Provincial territories will be able to freely reduce the taxgenerating a sort of dumping autonomous taxation in the financial sector.
Among the new features that the tax presents compared to the rate applied until now, there is a deduction of 25% of the company’s share and an extraordinary exemption in the event that entities suffer a lasting reduction in their profitability. In other words, it softens.
Temporary
On the other hand, it will be temporary and the tax rate will be progressive and will increase from 1% to 6% depending on the tax base. That is to say that The more the entity charges, the higher the tax will be..
The banks were quick to express their disagreement with the Socialists’ proposal, which at least has the approval of Junts and the PNV. One of the main entities in Spain, CaixaBankspecifically protested his articulation.
Its CEO, Gonzalo Gortázar, criticized the new banking tax “consecrates, exaggerates and accelerates discrimination between entities“. He said this during a press conference this Thursday, during which he referred to the tax figure as the “CaixaBank rate”.
He regretted that the new rate was progressivewhich, according to him, “does not make sense” in the case of legal entities and that it particularly harms the bank, since it is the largest financial entity in Spain.
For Gortázar, the rate will have a clear negative effect on credit, because it discourages it. “If we impose a 6% tax on interest, credit becomes less attractive. It is not good to discourage the granting of credit,” he added.
“We will continue to try to explain that this, which does not seem obvious to many people, is very harmful for everyone in the medium and long term. When we see the effects, it will be too late to turn back the clock“, he added.
In this wave there is also Hector GrisiCEO of Santander, who categorically rejects the tax. “We do not agree, it is discriminatory. We believe that it goes against the economy,” declared the banker during the presentation of the bank’s results on Tuesday.
The banking associations AEB and CECA led these protests and did not They exclude going to court considering that, if approved, they will remain “some of the vices of unconstitutionality” of the tax currently in force.
However, it should be remembered that, for now, the amendment and the legislative project in which the measure is to be addressed are not approved.
They must overcome the vote of the Finance Committee and Congress. Something that is unclear and could happen. Although the bank tax has the approval of PNV and Junts, this does not seem to be the case in the case of Sumar, Bildu and ERC..
These parliamentary partners of the PSOE demand that the tax on financial entities be tightened and that the tax on energy companies be recovered and implemented, which the socialists ignored in their amendments. It is not excluded that they will reject the entire tax reform promoted by the Ministry of Finance if their demands are successful.. In this scenario, who would have thought that the banks’ hope would lie in the left-wing formations of the socialists.
