Bankinter has just appealed the liquidation of the first payment of the new government tax to the “extraordinary profits” of the bank, according to sources from the entity. With this movement, it becomes the first large Spanish entity to open this legal front.
The bank’s own CEO, María Dolores Dancausa, already announced that her entity would appeal the tax “on the first day” when it has the opportunity. The impact on its results in the 2023 accounts will be around 100 million euros.
This week the term for the presentation of the resources ends and the forecast is that practically all the banks will litigate. Among medium-sized entities, Kutxabank has already made this decision.
The individual challenges to the liquidations of the Ministry of Finance are added to the front opened by the banking associations AEB and CECA, which filed two contentious-administrative appeals last week before the National Court against the ministerial order in which the Declaration models and advance payment of the new tax on the bank.
The associations, which represent both conventional banks and those from the old savings banks, have not so far requested precautionary measures against a tax that they consider discriminatory, harmful to competition and ill-conceived, when targeting income and not to another accounting figure such as profit.
The tax is charged to last year’s income, but it will have accounting effects on the results of banks in 2023. It is applied to entities that invoiced more than 800 million in 2019 and is equivalent to 4.8% of income, both in interest margins and commissions. It also only affects the activity that banks carry out in Spain and will not apply to any foreign entity, since none of them reached the threshold of 800 million in 2019.
With this measure, the Government aspires to collect 3,000 million euros in the two years of its application. The banks have estimated their impact in 2023 at 1,125 million euros, on profits in Spain last year of 7,289 million euros.
