The Minister of Finance and Public Administration, María Jesús Montero, has entered fully into the debate on the fiscal war opened by the President of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, by practically abolishing the Wealth Tax. The person in charge of fiscal policy has advocated this Wednesday for the "harmonization" of some taxes assigned to the autonomous communities. She raises it, yes, within the framework of a review of the regional financing model.
The Government, in fact, plans to present a new proposal based on adjusted population criteria in the coming days, official sources explain to La Vanguardia. This tax harmonization could fit into it, although the Executive assumes that the transferred taxes correspond to another stage of the reform.
Treasury assumes, however, that the financing reform is a utopia at this time of political debate, with regional and municipal elections in a matter of eight months. The Government would need the PP to be able to change the system. Today, a State pact for this matter seems impossible, the sources consulted assume.
For Montero, the central government should stop the "downward fiscal competition" carried out by governments such as Madrid or Andalusia - he has not referred to the Basque Country or Navarra - with their own fiscal regime - and avoid the so-called "fiscal dumping". However, the head of the Treasury has rejected the proposal to recentralize taxes proposed on Tuesday by the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá. The official proposal is to harmonize.
These measures, the minister has suggested, could come from the establishment of a minimum limit or a range in the bonus of this tax, which can now reach 100%. That would mean a legal change against which Moreno Bonilla has already promised to fight. Also Isabel Diaz Ayuso.
A position endorsed by the Generalitat. The Minister of Economy and Finance, Jaume Giró, bet yesterday he made this reform subject to changes in the financing model. Giró, this Wednesday, has responded to Moreno Bonilla's statements by setting the bait for Catalan businessmen by stating that "it is for things like this that some of us want to leave Spain as soon as possible; if we lived in a state where the territories had genuine vocation to collaborate or design a fair tax system, we would not have gotten where we are".
Giró has extended his criticism of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and has accused both communities, Andalusia and Madrid, of seeking to weaken Catalonia.
In statements to journalists in Congress collected by different agencies, the minister has also revealed that the Executive is "exploring" a greater contribution to the treasury of "great fortunes", without offering details in this regard. It is a recovery of a fiscal approach that was put in a drawer after the experts' report and that is now recovered to underpin the Government's strategy of fighting against the "powerful".
According to the Minister of Finance, two models have become evident: that of the PP, which in her opinion "defends the electricity companies, the oil companies, the banks and the large fortunes" and that of the PSOE, which "asks for an effort from those who more they have for us to be able to accompany the middle and working classes".
According to Montero, it is not just about helping the most vulnerable, but also the middle class, which bears the greatest tax burden and supports the welfare state, and has pointed out that support with scholarships, free transport or fuel discounts makes work in the direction that "those who have more economic capacity contribute more."
