The officials of the Tax Agency in Catalonia are in suspense due to the “very serious” consequencesthey say, that it will have for the common tax system, for the fight against fraud, and for the AEAT officials in that community, the materialization of the announcement that Salvador Illa, president of the Generalitat, made yesterday in the Catalan parliament, when He promised to “multiply by four” the resources that the Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) now has to meet the deadlines of the agreement he reached with ERC for his investiture.
Under this agreement, the Generalitat will progressively assume all taxes collected in that autonomous community, until assuming the fiscal independence what the independentists would want. The first milestone will be for the Generalitat to take charge of the 2025 income tax declaration (IRPF) campaign, and from there on the VAT, Inheritance and all other taxes that the Tax Agency now collects, until it is completely gone. of the common regime.
Logically, to go from collecting 4,705 million euros annually – what the ATC collected in 2023, according to the organization’s activities report – to 53,543 million, which is what the State collected in Catalonia last year (19.68% of the state total), more budget and personnel are needed; exactly, those that the AEAT has in Catalonia.
The ATC has a budget of just over 92 million euros and 852 employees, which if what the Catalan president promises is fulfilled would have to increase the budget to 370 million and 3,400 employees; It is not by chance that the planned number of employees is close to those assigned to the Tax Agency in Catalonia, 3,800.
Although Illa did not give more details yesterday, the Association of State Treasury Inspectors (IHE), the union’s main organization, assumes that they will try to transfer their members to the Catalan administration. They will do it like this “necessarily, because it cannot be any other way,” The association has explained to ABC, which considers the pact “an outrage.”
Firstly, because it places officials in a framework of legal uncertainty. As José María Peláez, spokesperson for the IHE, already explained to ABC, those represented have the feeling that an “earthquake” is coming upon them over which they have no control. Furthermore, he argues, the transfer is impossible because it cannot be done against the will of the inspectors, the majority of whom “they would not want to stay in Catalonia”, He explained, because they come from other autonomous communities since there “there is no opposition culture.”
‘Chunking’ the Tax Agency
Along the same lines, Gestha, the union of Treasury technicians, explained that something similar would happen with lower-ranking officials, since the data managed by the union indicates that the majority of them would refuse to join the Catalan agency; What’s more, among its constituents the transfer demands are already higher than in other communities, explained the Gestha spokesperson, José María Mollinedo.
There are many times that the IHE and Gestha have warned against the transfer of taxes to Catalonia, and not only because of the problems it would cause for officials. Both organizations agree: deliver the “key to the box”as they say, goes against the Constitution, which only recognizes the singularity of the regimes of the Basque Country and Navarra.
Furthermore, the IHE insisted yesterday for the umpteenth time, the transfer will seriously reduce the AEAT’s ability to fight fraud, for example, due to the departure of the tax information system and so many other common mechanisms. In other words, leaving the common fund of a community that represents 19% of Spanish GDP would be like opening an informational “black hole,” concluded the spokesman for the inspectors.
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