He Government maintains its commitment to make permanent the levies on banking and energy despite growing business pressures and the fact that it does not have guaranteed parliamentary support to do so, as its partners push in opposite directions.
The conversion of these extraordinary and temporary levies into permanent taxes is a commitment of both the Government agreement signed between PSOE and Sumar as well as the fiscal plan sent to Brussels last week, the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, recalled this Wednesday.
However, in recent days the adoption of this measure has become complicated after the CEO of RepsolJosu Jon Imaz, threatened to withdraw investments and Together It will leave its support for future 2025 budgets up in the air if the energy tax is finally maintained.
Some extraordinary and temporary taxes
The taxes on banks and large energy companies were adopted in an extraordinary way to alleviate the effects of the energy crisis and, initially, They were planned for two years, 2022 and 2023although they were later extended one more year, to 2024 (which will be settled in 2025).
Taxes on banks and energy companies have raised 2,859 million this year
This year, taxes have raised 2,859 million euros, of which 1,695 million correspond to banking (which taxes the intermediation margin) and 1,164 million to energy (which taxes income from unregulated activities in Spain).
The investiture agreement, signed by PSOE and Sumar, included the commitment that these temporary levies would become permanent (also the tax planin which the corresponding income is recorded), a process that involves its conversion into taxes, something that can only be done through a law.
This process, for the moment, has not started and it is difficult for it to be completed before the end of the year (even if a bill or an amendment to another law is used), so one option to prevent it from decaying would be extend once again both figures as temporary liens, although this would also require the approval of Congress.
Business and political pressure
Both banks and energy groups have shown their opposition to these taxes from the beginning, but this pressure has intensified this week when the CEO of Repsol has warned that investment “will slow down to a minimum” due to “fiscal populism.” of the Government, which “is going to penalize this activity with a discriminatory tax.
The rest of the affected energy groups have opted for caution and say they are waiting to know the design of the future tax before making a statement (Iberdrola has not even included it in its forecasts).
Imaz’s warnings have had a political echo, since Junts has indicated that it will not support any initiative that puts investments in Catalonia at risk, in reference to the energy tax, a reluctance that clashes with the ERC support to the maintenance of these figures.
The vice president and minister of labor, Yolanda Diazhas come to leave his support for future accounts in the air if there is no progress in the negotiation of the fiscal packagewhich must go through “the permanence of taxes that we have already achieved in previous years, which have to do with banking and energy.”
Tax design
One of the key issues in the negotiation of future taxes is the detail of their design, since could be configured differently from the current one to “maintain that balance in what they provide in terms of progressivity without affecting or minimizing the impact” on investment, according to the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body.
In fact, the extension of the taxes already provided for the energy tax to incorporate deductions for strategic investments linked to industrial and decarbonization projects, but these remained up in the air because they were going to be legislated in the 2024 budgets and these were never approved.
This debate has been added this week the governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escriváwho has asked that the future banking tax be “as neutral as possible”, which, in his opinion, means allowing provisions to be discounted, something that was rejected by Sumar because it is “absurd to charge a tax on profits and then return it via deduction”.
In fact, the investiture agreement provided for the “full permanence” of both taxes and, now, the Government is “speaking with all groups” in search of an agreement, the Minister of Finance stressed this Wednesday, Maria Jesus Monteroalthough at the moment “there has been no progress,” according to Sumar’s spokesperson, Íñigo Errejón.
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