In its monthly barometers, the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) usually introduces some current questions (and, normally, of interest to the Government) in order to find out the opinion of citizens. In the October barometer (3,713 interviews and a sample error of ± 1.6%) question number five about the different payment of taxes according to the autonomy in which one resides draws attention.
The CIS asks: To what degree do you agree with the following sentence: ‘The taxes that we Spaniards pay should be the same throughout the territory regardless of the autonomous community of residence’?
An issue that enters fully into the request that the Valencian president, Ximo Puig, has long demanded to equalize the fiscal pressure and avoid the dumping that, in his opinion, some autonomies carry out.
The response to the CIS question seems to endorse this option since 71.2% of those surveyed say they “strongly agree” (43.7%) or “quite agree” (25.1%) with the option to equalize taxes. In fact, only 25.2% say they “little” or “do not agree at all”.
When this question is crossed based on what the respondent voted for in the 2019 general elections, it is observed that the majority of PSOE voters endorse this option (78.1%), while the greatest rejection occurs among nationalist voters. Despite the crusade of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, against fiscal harmonization, in the PP, the percentage of support for the measure is much higher (66.8%) than that of opponents (29.9%) to match taxes in all regions.
The CIS also gives an approximation to the Compromís voters: 61.4% agree, while 38.6% would be against. In fact, the proposal is always heard from the mouth of Ximo Puig and not from his main partners in the regional Executive. And it is that, in the Valencian Community, there have been curious episodes such as the fact that the PP censored the idea of ??the head of the Consell appealing to fiscal autonomy.
The Valencian president has spent years demanding, without success, equality in the payment of taxes regardless of the territory where he lives. The last time, during the solemn speech on October 9, where he called for tax harmonization to end tax dumping.
This position has led the Valencian president for months to a dialectical battle with the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who has always defended the autonomy of the Community of Madrid to lower and eliminate taxes and thus attract companies and high incomes.
All in all, it seemed that Puig was preaching in the desert until the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, proposed in a forum a “recentralization” of taxes so that the autonomous communities do not compete with each other for downward measures in tax matters. However, the Government quickly clarified that it was a “personal position” of the Minister of Inclusion that the Government did not share.
In the middle of this debate -which has been on the agenda of the Valencian president for years, very upset about what he considers unfair competition from Madrid-, the CIS question (and especially its result) add other variables to the request.
