The collection of the new tax on large fortunes does not change the ranking of tax revenue on wealth by communities in Spain, which continues to lead Catalonia. In 2022, the collection of the wealth tax was 690 million euros (722 if the rights generated are taken into account) in the community, to which the two million of the tax on large fortunes should be added . On the other hand, Madrid taxpayers have contributed 555 million to the public treasury for the aforementioned tax on the great fortunes, and with this the collection in Catalonia is still 25% above that of Madrid.
These data show that it would not have been possible to approve the taxation of high incomes by communities that had been defended by the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, during the previous legislature when she promoted, for example, the white paper on taxation.
The design of the new state tax explains why – despite the fact that there are more fortunes in Madrid than in Catalonia, according to data from the Tax Agency – it is in the Catalan community where more is collected for wealth. The main reason is that in Catalonia, taxation starts at half a million, while that of the great fortunes is activated at three million. The second is an error in the drafting of the state tax, which allows the unpaid estate quota to be counted to reduce the payment. The current legislation provides that whoever pays a taxpayer for patrimony and personal income tax cannot exceed 60% of their taxable income base. With the drafting of the law – which was attempted to be modified – it is possible to account for what should be paid to Madrid for patrimony even if nothing has actually been paid. Consulted tax sources claim that it is very difficult to calculate what the tax loss is due to the aforementioned error.
The Spanish rule obliges all taxpayers with an estate of more than two million to declare the estate tax, even if in their community it is subsidized at 100%, as is the case in Madrid or Andalusia. For this reason, it is public knowledge that – with data from 2021 – there were almost 19,000 citizens in the Madrid community who should have paid an additional 1.2 billion in property tax. Since it is 100% bonus, they paid nothing. With the new tax, only about 10,000 people in Madrid paid the tax on the great fortunes, with the aforementioned global collection of 555 million.
It is somewhat similar to what happens in other communities, such as Andalusia. In 2021, when the property tax was in force in the Andalusian community, 108 million were collected, and instead now, with the new state tax, only 29.7 million.
In the case of Catalonia, the Department of Economy, headed by Natàlia Mas, designed a strategy to capture the maximum of the extra revenue from the new tax. The calculations were that what Catalan taxpayers would have to pay for the wealth tax was 12.1 million. It affected around 290. The Government approved an asset increase to capture this money. Once the modification was made, the forecasts were that 289 Catalans would pay 1.7 million. In the end – according to data from the Spanish Treasury – 322 people paid the tax for a total amount of two million, with which the forecasts were much closer to reality.
