The autonomic financing system, expired since 2014, again favored citizens of some communities in a remarkable way last year, and harmed residents of others. If the per capita contribution of the financial income model in force is taken as a reference and is adjusted to the population class, the inhabitants of the Community of Madrid received 166 euros more per person over the course of last year than the national average. Specifically, each resident of Madrid received a contribution of 3,128 euros, above the national average of 2,962 euros. In the case of Catalonia, funding per individual was 2,924 euros, 38 euros below the average for all Spaniards and 204 euros less than that of Madrid residents. The Fiscal Authority (Airef) has updated its economic and financial information observatory of the autonomous communities, in which population calculations take into account the percentage of elderly people and children, as well as insularity or dispersion. Airef claims that this methodology brings more quality to the data. The calculation is not made with the population provided by the register, but with an “adjusted” one based on the aforementioned parameters.
The current autonomous funding model, so criticized by the affected communities, continues to benefit, once again, autonomies such as Cantabria, where citizens received 3,660 euros last year, the Canary Islands, La Rioja and Extremadura. In these last three regions, the 3,330 euros of economic contribution per capita of the system was exceeded. In the case of the other two large territories by population, the Valencian Community and Andalusia, the two autonomies continue to be in the last wagon of the resources received. Specifically, each Andalusian received a total of 2,757 euros in 2022 and each Valencian, 2,777 euros. They are 205 and 185 euros less than the national average, according to the data provided by the fiscal supervisor to his observatory.
Financing is understood as the resources provided by the central system, referring both to deliveries on account and to those managed by the autonomous community itself. Its configuration, even so, starts from an outdated model, since the autonomous Spain of 2023 is not the same as that of 2009, when it was approved. The central governments of the PP and PSOE have tried to renew this model in recent years, but have not been able to modify it due to the lack of political consensus. The popular ones have promised to present a new system if they govern from next Sunday, while in the current Ministry of Finance they already thought of launching their own proposal, an initiative postponed by the outbreak of the war Ukraine and the inflationary crisis.
The Fiscal Authority also offers its economic and financial information observatory a lot of information on the tax capacity of the autonomous communities and the amount of economic resources that each territory stopped collecting to subsidize or directly abolish some taxes. The differences in this section are also notable. In Catalonia, 0.62% of GDP was waived last year, which amounts to a little over 4,350 million. In the autonomy presided over by Pere Aragonès, the taxes on patrimonial transmissions, on documented legal acts, on certain means of transport and own taxes were above the national average.
The public coffers of the Community of Madrid, for their part, stopped collecting 2.18% of their GDP to subsidize the property tax, among others, or renounce having their own taxes. From January 1, 2022, it is the only autonomy in Spain in this situation (in Catalonia there were fifteen own levies in force in 2022). The percentage of tax benefits in Madrid is the highest in the State and also the highest since there are records. It means a reduction in revenue of around 12,000 million. The national average of tax benefits applied to the different territories is 0.72% of GDP, excluding the Basque Country and Navarre, which have their own treasury.
Another piece of data that Airef offers is public spending on essential services, that is to say, health, education and social care. In this section, the items from the Basque Country and Navarra stand out, where 4,341 and 4,002 euros were spent per capita last year. In Catalonia, this investment was, last year, 3,539 euros per citizen, above the national average, which was 3,303 euros. Madrid was the community that spent the least on fundamental public services: 3,248 euros per inhabitant.
If the items are broken down, Catalonia spent 1,902 euros per citizen last year on healthcare, compared to the 1,770 euros national average. In education, the investment for each Catalan was 1,152 euros, compared to 1,099 euros on average in Spain. In social services, it rose to 485 euros per individual, compared to 378 euros on average.
