The Government reacts to the fiscal offensive launched by the PP and openly defends a harmonization of the taxes transferred to the autonomous communities to avoid a competition to attract taxpayers between territories. The Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, broke into the debate yesterday on the abolition of the wealth tax announced by Juanma Moreno Bonilla, positioning herself in favor of imposing a common maximum cap on bonuses and thus avoiding the so-called fiscal dumping.
Montero was in favor of curbing this "downward fiscal competition" carried out by the governments of Madrid or Andalusia with measures such as establishing a range in which the regional governments should move when it comes to subsidizing transferred taxes.
Patrimonial harmonization was, precisely, one of the issues that aroused the most debate in the committee of experts for tax reform. The wise men of Montero finally agreed, after intense conversations and the resignation of two of its members, to advise the Government to implement this measure. The Treasury put his report away in a drawer.
The solution that Montero proposes, however, is not easy, since the Government links fiscal harmonization to the reform of the autonomous financing model, which has expired since 2014. To renew it, the two main ones should reach an agreement that seems utopian at this pre-electoral moment, as assumed by the Government itself. It would remain for the next legislature.
But the Treasury is going to try. The Ministry is finalizing a new financing proposal following population criteria adjusted to the territory, as defended by some autonomous executives of the PSOE. The approach will be made public in the coming weeks, they point out.
In the middle of the fiscal debate, the Minister of Finance surprised yesterday by revealing that the coalition is exploring a greater contribution to the treasury of large fortunes. Budget negotiation sources confirm that PSOE and United We Can are evaluating different formulas to increase the fiscal pressure on high net worth or income. "We have done it with energy companies and with banking and we have to continue exploring it also with great fortunes," Montero said in the corridors of the Congress of Deputies. The objective is that "those who have the most economic capacity contribute more."
