The benefits of notaries and registrars must be nationalized

Good morning!

How is your week going? I hope that things go for you like Carlos Body, Minister of Economy, who woke up this Wednesday with the news that the magazine The Economist has chosen Spain as the ‘number one’ economy in 2024 among the most developed, which is part of the OECD. It is not a minor mention, far from it, The Economist It is a publication of liberal ideology that is read by the business and government elite of all countries. With such a letter of introduction I don’t know what arguments the PP is going to raise in the economic field to make some opposition to the coalition government.

There are still many things to improve in the Spanish economy, from unemployment figures to the loss of purchasing power to the high cost of housing, but the truth is that in Spain there are people who live very well, some more than well. This is the case of notaries and registrars, who are public officials, dependent on the Ministry of Justice, but have income as if they managed a private company.

The Tax Agency statistics on the “evolution of returns from economic activities 2018-2022” It offers details about the self-employed through their Personal Income Tax (IRPF) declarations and allows you to know how much each self-employed person earns. In the case of notaries and registrars the figures are scandalous. On the one hand, registrars obtained an average profit of 470,000 euros while notaries had average profits of 380,000 euros. Here you have an x-ray of the self-employed business in our country.

For being public servants, they are earning income that is out of logic. We are talking about 1,045 property registrars and 2,396 notaries. The income of these officials should go to the State.

Of course, after passing the opposition, both registrars and notaries would have to have a high salary as an official of group A1. To give an example, State lawyers are civil servants of that category and have a gross salary that starts at 50,000/60,000 euros but, depending on the position they occupy in the General Administration of the State, their salary can reach 100,000 euros.

According to data from the Tax Agency, all registrars have earned around 490 million euros in 2022 while notaries have obtained profits of more than 906 million. Between both bodies of officials they add up to almost 1.4 billion euros. To get an idea of ​​the money involved, the special tax on banks amounted to 1,695 million euros while the tax on energy companies stood at 1,164 million euros, in both cases taking into account the results obtained in 2023.

There are always complaints about bureaucratization. Technology already makes it possible to reduce this bureaucracy and the advances in artificial intelligence will make the work of registrars and notaries much less expensive and faster and more efficient. The income of registrars and notaries must be nationalized, which would reduce the cost of their fees, and eliminate the meaningless privileges of these bodies of officials.

The graph

When it seems that inflation is stabilizing and that the price of olive oil is beginning to fall, it is now the turn of sunflowers to skyrocket in value again, especially in supermarkets. In recent weeks, some of the main chains have increased the price of this product by 18%, although the increases at origin have only been 7%. It must be taken into account that with the rise in olive oil, there was a change in consumption patterns: an increase in the purchase of sunflower oil by 21.3%, reaching a per capita consumption of 3.52 liters. , while olive oil fell in volume by more than 18% (5.47 liters per person). Here we answer why the price of sunflower oil is now skyrocketing.

The data

It is the price for which the Blackstone fund will finally have to sell some homes to its tenants in the center of Madrid. We say finally because these citizens have had to sue for years so that the purchase price was the same as that paid by the vulture fund to the Madrid City Council. The Supreme Court has confirmed the decision of the Provincial Court of Madrid, which recognized the right of preferential purchase of the tenants of the Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS) of the City Council, which in 2013 sold 1,860 homes to the vulture fund, in addition to parking spaces and storage rooms, under different public protection regimes for 72.8 million euros. Here we tell you the journey of some citizens who have not surrendered to the demands of the vulture fund: “If the price was fair for Blackstone, it will be fair for us.”

There is another interesting fact also related to the housing problem: the anti-eviction moratorium has prevented more than 58,000 rental families from being expelled from their homes. The measure, approved at the beginning of the pandemic to protect vulnerable tenants, has prevented one in four evictions, although it has not served to stop 135,000 families from losing their homes. Here we tell you why it is necessary to extend the anti-eviction moratorium from December 31.

Entrepreneurs

This week we have a few entrepreneurs of posh. On the one hand, the founder of Telepizza and former president of Jazztel, Leopoldo Fernández Pujals, returns to Madrid. After 25 years living in the tax haven of the Bahamas, this key figure of the Spanish business community since the late 90s has reported his departure from that tax haven to the Luxembourg registry where he has registered at least two instruments with which he controls his impressive stud farm in Segovia. , which has received hundreds of thousands of euros in public aid in recent years, among other companies in Spain. Here you can read the history of Spanish capitalism starting with the return to Spain from the Bahamas of the founder of Telepizza.

On the other hand, the auditor Deloitte has expressed its doubts due to lack of information about a litigation acquired in 2023 by PLA Litigation Funding, a firm controlled by financier Javier Botín. These types of companies, more common in the United States, are dedicated to financing judicial or arbitration proceedings and in the event of a favorable resolution, they keep a percentage of the amount obtained. In this link we explain how Javier Botín’s fund that finances litigation in Spain is doing: more than 60 million invested and doubts from his auditor.

Every time he speaks the bread rises

These changes do not weaken the main objective, which is to align taxes on energy products with the objective of decarbonizing the economy.

Paula Conthe
— General Secretary of the Treasury

The pressure is becoming unbearable for the ecological policy initiatives that seemed on track in recent years. The return to the US presidency of Donald Trump and a mistaken approach to the competitiveness of European companies seem to be driving the most involutionist positions in the EU. Initiatives proposed in the previous mandate of Ursula von der Leyen, such as the law against deforestation or the reduction of the use of pesticides, have already begun to be reversed. Now, while the European Commission, France, Belgium and the Netherlands reject the exemption of kerosene and heavy oil from taxes within the framework of the review of the energy tax directive, a majority of countries, including Spain (there we have the Secretary General of the Treasury giving strange arguments), they are committed to leaving air and maritime transport untaxed. Here we explain how Spain joins the countries that are committed to leaving kerosene from airplanes and heavy oil from ships outside of the EU’s ‘green taxation’.

It may not be the only step back. The European People’s Party has joined the automobile industry to eliminate the fines planned for the European automotive sector that does not comply with the legal obligation to reduce C02 emissions. Although there are companies like Volvo that assure that there has been plenty of time for the industry to prepare, lobbies are working hard to review the legislation and eliminate sanctions that will begin to materialize in 2025. The European automobile industry continues to work harder the corridors than engineering, as demonstrated by the need to raise tariffs on the Chinese electric car. As on other occasions, the threats have already arrived. Luca de Meo, president of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) and CEO of Renault, has warned that “if the European Commission does not move, companies like ours will have to put 15 billion euros in the fridge, that they will not go to investment.” In this link we explain that the European PP and the automobile industry are pushing to eliminate fines for not reducing polluting emissions.

public good

Common sense sometimes prevails in economic policy decisions. The Government has approved the first Industry Law of the 21st century, since the current one dates back to 1992, despite the number of changes and challenges that the sector has had for years. After a long negotiation, Sumar managed to convince the PSOE so that the draft Industry Law includes formulas to avoid relocations of industrial companies if they have received public aid. There was certain resistance in the Ministry of Economic Affairs that has finally been resolved to put forward a new rule. In this information from Antonio M. Vélez we explain how the new Industry Law will force companies that relocate outside the EU to return all public aid.

We like competition

In this section we bring you a series of articles from other media that we found interesting:

It’s over for this week. We return with more economic information next Thursday, in a new newsletter. While you can write to us at [email protected] with your proposals, complaints or ideas.

Good week!