If he tax plan agreed by the two coalition partners of the Government seeks to combat inequality and preserve the welfare state, as the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, declared on Sunday in this newspaper, the Executive should have had the courage to face a Comprehensive tax reform, compromised, by the way, at the beginning of the legislature, and having fled from new patches, which seem to respond more to the electoral battle with the PP than to the intention of establishing a fairer tax system. Reviewing taxation at a time of crisis, uncertainty and very high inflation, consequences of the war in Ukraine, is presented as an urgent exercise to mitigate the perverse effects that the rise in prices has on the most modest economies and also to claim in this difficult situation the solidarity of those who have more as recommended by the chief economist of the European Central Bank, Philip Lane, nothing suspected of leftism.
However, the measures adopted in this area cannot ignore the fiscal reality of our country, which is far removed in some aspects from the rest of the countries of the European Union, particularly in the fight against fraud, which in Spain leaves much to be desired. So when establishing new taxes or new rates, our rulers should also take into account that on many occasions those who pay, for example, the wealth tax, or from next year on the great fortunes, are those who cannot -or do not want- to hide their wealth in the submerged economy, which represents 25% of Spanish GDP, or in tax havens. At the same time, it is legitimate to ask whether it is fair that these taxes levy for the third or fourth time the income of the middle classes that cannot hide it in shell companies. Fighting inequality and preserving the welfare state are laudable objectives, as is the fact that taxation seeks redistributive justice, but it is equally laudable not to penalize savings or economic activity that generates jobs and produces wealth for the whole of society. society.
It should be recognized, however, that the Government had to act against the fiscal auction in which some communities had entered, following in the wake of the one initiated by the one in Madrid long ago, and try to stop fiscal ‘dumping’. But the solution adopted does not seem the most successful, because in practice taxing large fortunes means reinstating the anachronistic wealth tax where it has been totally or partially subsidized.
Other government measures are more than reasonable, given the current circumstances. The decision of lighten the tax burden of medium and low incomes, extending the reduction for work income from the current 18,000 euros to 21,000, and also that of alleviating the tax pressure on the self-employed and SMEs, lead that classification. They are essential rules to cushion the weight of inflation on family economies. It is not exactly the fiscal deflation on personal income tax that the PP requested, but it is very similar. It is not understood, therefore, that the Executive has also fallen into the electoral bid trap instead of seeking, at such a critical moment, consensus with the main opposition party and with all the autonomous communities on specific issues in which discrepancies are minimal or simply non-existent.