The Junts economic program includes the elimination and reduction of some taxes, less bureaucracy in the administration, governance of key infrastructures from Catalonia and the negotiation in Madrid of an economic agreement in Madrid, so that 100% of the taxes are collected by the Generalitat, as happens in Euskadi.
The JxCat candidate, Carles Puigdemont, presented these proposals this Friday in Argelers, at the party’s electoral headquarters, together with the number two on his list, the businesswoman Anna Navarro, and the number three, the former councilor Josep Rull, who replaces him in the debates with the rest of the candidates. In that appearance, the former president conditioned the formation of a coalition government on the articulation of a common front in Madrid against “fiscal plunder” and proposed grouping various departments of the Catalan executive related to the economic sphere into two large areas. On the one hand, Economy, Finance, Taxation and Infrastructure and, on the other, Business, Research, Work and Universities. His idea, he has said, is to “promote a change of model.” “We cannot apply the same formulas as until now to new problems,” he considered.
In relation to taxation, the former president has pointed out that Catalonia “cannot be less competitive than other European communities and regions” with which he has to look in the mirror and has promised to review all the taxes paid in Catalonia to eliminate some of them and lower others in the first 100 days of government. In the program, the training proposes to rebate 99% of the inheritance tax for parents, children and spouses; and exclude from the inheritance tax the replacement in the family business up to the third degree of kinship. It is also advocated to reduce the lowest income tax bracket to 9.5% and deflate all brackets to deal with inflation, as well as the deduction of sports and health insurance contributions. Also included is the possibility of reviewing and eliminating the wealth tax, which the party considers unfair, and a reform of the economic activities tax.
These are proposals that the formation had already formulated in the last two years in the negotiation of the Generalitat’s budgets. “We have to stop paying Mrs. [Isabel] Ayuso’s tax cuts,” Puigdemont proclaimed. “It is unfair that Catalans pay more, it is not because they have more money, it is because they take it from us, Madrid takes it,” added the former president, who defended that “Catalonia is one of the economic engines of southern Europe.” , but he added that “the engine is beginning to have a breakdown” which is called “unsustainable spoilage.” “The data in the public domain are shameful,” added the former president, who, taking as a reference the conclusions of the Parliament’s study commission on the State’s historical debt with Catalonia, has estimated the fiscal deficit since 1986 at 450,000 million. euros, which is about 22,000 million per year.
“We pay a large part of the Community of Madrid every year. The Catalans, with their effort and work and their contribution to public financing, pay Mrs. Ayuso her budget and Madrid’s economy has been artificially inflated,” continued the post-convergent leader, who stressed that “this plunder is people suffer and it affects competitiveness” and has considered that Catalonia competes in the global economy “with its hands tied behind its back.”
Likewise, Puigdemont has indicated that they will negotiate an economic agreement for Catalonia and for this he has the decisive vote of JxCat in the Congress of Deputies. “As a political force that has decisive votes in Madrid, we will make them comply and we will ask for a modification of the organic law of the Financing of the Autonomous Communities (Lofca) with an exceptionality clause for Catalonia and that we facilitate 100% of the management of taxes”, pointed out the independence leader. “Either they give us 100% of the management of the taxes that Catalans pay, or there will be no Spanish State budgets,” warned Puigdemont, who calls for “reversing the debt” as “a new boost” for the Catalan economy.
“We cannot have all the economic resources for social policies,” Puigdemont lamented. “It cannot be that we do not have the tools to respond to the vulnerability generated by the fiscal deficit. They are citizens who pay taxes,” he added.
In the field of infrastructure, Junts advocates for governance and management from Catalonia. “We cannot be competitive if we do not govern the master bigas, which are the infrastructures.” In this sense, he has demanded “Catalan management”, and that the benefits generated by infrastructures such as the El Prat airport and the Port of Barcelona “stay in Catalonia”. “There is great opacity regarding these benefits and they also disappear. And there are many. El Prat and the Port of Barcelona cannot finance other ruinous operations of the State. Aena is hiding information,” stressed the former Catalan president, who has also demanded a “Catalan framework for labor relations” so that there are “better jobs and better salaries.” “That is called sovereignty,” added the candidate, who has promised the “necessary actions to make it a reality.”
As proof of this, Puigdemont has made reference to the Catalan employers’ association of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). “The State Government has always ignored the Catalan reality. Pimec was not an employer’s association for the State’s calls, and it is the main Catalan employer’s association of SMEs,” pointed out the post-convergent leader, who has pointed out that the Catalan business reality is different from that of Madrid with SMEs and the self-employed, above all, in addition to large companies.
“When we say that it is a matter of two, there are also two economic models, a Spanish model and one that talks about refounding all that and starting with the political administration of taxes and the financing system,” he concluded.
