In the agreement signed between the PSOE and Junts presented last Thursday, the divergence between both parties regarding the financing of Catalonia appears. An issue that has been going on for decades and whose possible solution is at the starting point of the process, along with the ruling of the Constitutional Court in the summer of 2010 against the Statute approved in the Parliament, in the Spanish Parliament and in a referendum by citizens. of Catalonia.
In the pact signed with ERC, the PSOE assumes a forgiveness of part of the Generalitat's debt with the State, through the FLA, 15,000 million euros out of a total of 73,100 million. But for Junts that is not enough.
That is why the pact states that "Junts will propose from the outset a modification of the organic law of Financing of the Autonomous Communities (LOFCA) that establishes an exception clause for Catalonia that recognizes the singularity in which the institutional system of the Generalitat and to facilitate the transfer of 100% of all taxes paid in Catalonia. And, for its part, the PSOE will support measures that allow financial autonomy and access to the Catalan market, as well as a unique dialogue on the impact of the current financing model on Catalonia.”
The text, from the outset, makes clear the divergences between the two parties. Junts requests a unilateral relationship with the State that, according to the sources consulted, would materialize through an additional provision in the LOFCA such as those used to leave the Basque Country and Navarra, the two regional communities that have a fiscal pact, out of the common system. .
The other claim of Junts included in the document and referring to financing is that of the transfer of 100% of all Catalan taxes, an ambiguous definition. The reference to the simple transfer is far from a fiscal pact, in which, as stated in the Basque statute of autonomy, the powers cover “the levy, management, settlement, collection and inspection of all taxes.”
The transfer included in the LOFCA, currently, covers the wealth tax, property transfers, inheritances and donations. In these cases, the regional administrations assume the management, liquidation, collection and inspection. In the case of VAT and personal income tax, the State has transferred 50% of its performance to all the autonomous communities, without regulatory capacity in the first case and with limitations in the second. Theoretically, the State could continue raising the transfer percentage without altering the political foundations of the tax system. Finally, the corporate tax remains, 100% in the hands of the State, in terms of competition and regulation.
Regarding the Junts proposals, the PSOE details in the agreement document between both formations that “it will commit to measures that allow financial autonomy and access to the Catalan market, as well as a unique dialogue on the impact of the current financing model on Catalonia.” That is to say, it does not open the door to any of the requests of the independence party and does open the door to the review of the current regional financing system, unanimously considered obsolete by all administrations and whose theoretical validity expired in 2014.
