Finally, on the third occasion, after two extensions last week, the Congressional Finance Commission was held on the transposition in Spain of the European directive to establish a 15% floor for the corporate tax of multinationals. Although the third time was not the charm. At least for the coalition Government, because the lack of agreement between its partners has reduced to a minimum the fiscal “package” with which it intended to accompany the Bill on the minimum tax on large companies.
Waiting to go through the Plenary Session of Congress this Thursday, the new taxes on banks and energy companies do not have sufficient parliamentary support. Both, designed by the previous Executive, in 2022, as temporary liens, expire at the end of 2024.
The PSOE had proposed the “tax reform” prior to the 2025 General State Budgets (PGE) based on amendments. Initially, it included the special tax on banks, but dropped the tax on energy companies, as agreed by the socialists with Junts and PNV a couple of weeks ago. This agreement made all the partners on the left of the socialists react, showing their opposition and discomfort. Between them, ERC or Podemos have turned it into a red line.
His refusal to support the “fiscal package” without the tax on energy companies means that the 15% minimum tax law will reach the Lower House including just a handful of tax changes that have passed in the Finance Commission. Among those that have survived, the tax cuts for SMEs and micro-SMEs stand out or the increase of two points in personal income tax for capital incomes higher than 300,000 euros.
In this way, with the tax reform slimmed down, the transposition of the European Union (EU) directive is still pending to receive the support of the Finance Commission – the deputies are negotiating while a last recess of a Commission that began to 5 p.m.—. If the “dictum” is definitively approved, it will finally be voted on in the Plenary Session of Congress this Thursday, where the amendments on taxes on banks and energy companies have their last chance. Because they are still “alive”, despite having fallen out of the “package” that accompanies the Bill on the 15% minimum tax on multinationals.
By the way, this transposition is necessary to prevent Spain from being prosecuted by the European Commission, and also to unblock the disbursements of the funds from the Recovery Plan of the EU itself.
Negotiations until the last minute
At the beginning of the Commission, Pilar Valluguera, the ERC spokesperson on the Finance Commission, argued that her group was not “going to accept a fiscal package that, due to the inflexibility of the representatives of Repsol and Iberdrola” in Congress — referring mainly to PNV and Junts—, fail to comply with the commitment to convert the temporary tax that was designed in 2022 into a permanent tax on energy companies due to the extraordinary benefits achieved by the inflation crisis.
“If Repsol has decided that it is not going to pay taxes, we are not going to go through that, especially after a Dana. I am not here to defend businessmen. “We were willing to support a widely subsidized tax, but not to withdraw it,” added Valluguera, who did confirm that his parliamentary group would vote in favor of some specific amendments.
At the last moment, the PSOE has tried to rescue the banking tax, adding modifications to the original amendment to make it more attractive to ERC. In the video, you can see one of the PSOE representatives personally asking Valluguera for support for what is technically known as a transactional amendment. Faced with this movement, the Republicans have chosen to abstain, which has not been enough to save this commitment of the coalition government.
The “temporary” taxes on banking and energy companies have collected 2,859 million in 2024. This figure is very similar to that of 2023. 1,695 million euros correspond to the public income obtained from the record profits of financial entities during the previous year. , and 1,164 million corresponds to large electricity or oil companies.
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