In Junts’ economic program there are as prominent measures the abolition and reduction of some taxes, less bureaucracy in the administration, governance of key infrastructures from Catalonia and the negotiation in Madrid of an economic concert, so that the 100% of the taxes are collected by the Generalitat, as in Euskadi. Carles Puigdemont presented these proposals in Algiers yesterday and made the formation of a coalition government conditional on the articulation of a common front in Madrid against “fiscal plunder”.
Likewise, the JxCat candidate stated that they will group the government’s economic departments into two large areas. On the one hand, Economy, Finance, Taxation and Infrastructures, and on the other, Business, Research, Work and Universities.
In relation to taxation, the former president, who has spoken these days of “suffocating fiscal pressure”, pointed out that Catalonia “cannot be less competitive than other European communities and regions” with which it now competes “with its hands tied to the ‘back”, as he said. For this reason, he promised that he will review all the taxes paid in Catalonia, to abolish some and reduce others, in the first hundred days of government.
Specifically, the training proposes to subsidize 99% of the inheritance tax for parents, children and spouses; exclude from succession the succession to the family business up to the third degree of kinship; reduce the lowest section of the personal income tax from 10% to 9.5%; deflate all sections by 5% to deal with inflation, and the deduction of sports fees and mutual health insurance. The possibility of eliminating the wealth tax and a reform of the tax on economic activities is also foreseen. “We have to stop paying Mrs [Isabel] Ayuso’s tax cuts”, asserted Puigdemont, who considers it “unfair that Catalans pay more”, because “Madrid is taking it”.
The former president stated that “Catalonia is one of the economic engines of southern Europe”, although he clarified that “the engine is starting to break down” which is called “unsustainable plunder”. “People suffer from this looting and it affects competitiveness,” he continued.
To reverse the situation, Puigdemont assured that they will negotiate an economic concert. “As a political force that has decisive votes, we will request a modification of the organic law on Financing of the Autonomous Communities with an exception clause for Catalonia”, he said. “Either they give us 100% of the management of the taxes paid by the Catalans or there will be no budgets”, warned the leader, who also claims the governance of infrastructures such as the port and the airport and that their profits, about which he said there is opacity, “stay in Catalonia” and not go to “ruinous operations” of the State. He also advocated for a Catalan labor relations framework.
