Spain is the only country in the European Union that has a Wealth Tax. In no other nation does that same figure exist. And the objective of the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, is that the Spanish tax system continues to be an exception in the EU and goes against European standards, since her ambition is to perpetuate this tax. This situation is somewhat contradictory with the Ministry’s objective of converging with Europe on points such as collection levels, but Montero’s intention is clear and she herself made it clear last week.
«In the European Union, only Spain has the Wealth Tax», emphasizes the General Council of Economists, which yesterday published the report Taxation of wealth: state of the art. This document states that Francefor example, replaced the figure of Heritage with “a tax that taxes only real estate assets.” Netherlandsfor its part, “replaced it with a tax on the fixed return on assets”, and Belgium “It only taxes securities accounts whose average value exceeds one million euros.” But in no other country is “the set of assets and rights of economic content of which it is the owner” taxed, as defined by the Tax Agency itself.
«The Wealth Tax and the Great Fortunes Tax is turning around an issue that is outdated. It is not the standard in Europe. And that they are maintained can only be understood by the battles between Administrations,” added Valentí Pich, president of the Council of Economists, yesterday, referring, especially, to the confrontations between the central Government and the communities governed by the Popular Party.
The popular regions, with Madrid and Andalusia in the lead, offer a total Heritage bonus. In the opinion of Minister Montero, this is a clear «dumping tax”, unfair competition with the rest of the regions. And for that reason, he applied a harmonization through the back door through the Great Fortunes tax. In this way, the rich who do not pay Patrimony have to pay the new figure.
In fact, this is what the taxpayers affected by this tax have just done, which has generated a collection of 623 million euros. 90% of that figure comes from Madrid, and the total figure is far from the 1.5 billion that the Treasury promised. In the Ministry, however, they value this information very positively, and add that it must be quantified jointly with the Wealth Tax. The sum of both figures offers a total figure of 1,868 million euros.