Government will eliminate the tax exemption tomorrow which the Church enjoys in the tax on constructions, installations and works (ICIO). The suppression will be published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), and is the result of the agreement that the Executive and the Episcopal Conference reached last March.
The elimination has been announced by the Secretary of State for Finance, Jesus Gascon, during his speech at a macroeconomic information day organized by the Association of Economic Information Journalists (APIE). Until this Thursday morning, the program included the intervention of the Minister of Finance herself, Maria Jesus Montero.
But the deputy general secretary of the PSOE has canceled her participation at the last minute, citing agenda problems and in the midst of negotiations and concessions to the Catalan independence movement to try to tie up her votes in the investiture of the current president, Pedro Sánchez. Montero is playing a fundamental role in this process.
Returning to the announcement made by Gascón, the number 2 of the Treasury has pointed out that the “Catholic Church is in the same situation as any other institution or organization that has for-profit purposes.” The ICIO is a municipal tax, and the end of the exemption will have an impact of between 12 and 14 millionreports Servimedia.
In this way, the Executive of Pedro Sánchez will proceed to repeal the ministerial order of June 5, 2001 of the Ministry of Economy and Finance which regulates the inclusion of the Tax on Constructions, Installations and Works (ICO) in the Agreement between the Spanish State and the Holy See on Economic Affairs.