Taxation is one of the most difficult issues to explain for political parties in the campaign, but it directly affects the pocket of each citizen. The Community of Madrid, led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is leading an ideological struggle at the state level that has been lowering taxes for its citizens for 18 years; while the opposition, especially Más Madrid, PSOE and Podemos, criticize that Ayuso's decreases favor the richest, those who have more than 1 million euros in their assets. For its part, Vox even intends to go a little further than the Madrid PP by granting more advantages to the wealthy classes and demanding more tax cuts.
Not only are the political parties that are now competing to reach the Puerta del Sol face each other, but Isabel Díaz Ayuso maintains a scuffle with other autonomous communities over her tax policy every time she announces a reduction.
A very graphic example was the one presented by the candidate for the Madrid Community of Podemos, Alejandra Jacinto, in last week's debate between five of the Telemadrid candidates, who defended that a citizen who earns 1,500 euros a month saves 167 annual euros; while a taxpayer who earns 103,000 euros a year - as is the case with Ayuso herself - saves 1,343 euros, almost ten times more. Along the same lines, the PSOE candidate, Juan Lobato, exclaimed that it makes no sense for "a taxpayer who earns 50,000 euros to pay the same taxes as one who earns 300,000" in the Community of Madrid.
La Vanguardia has analyzed the main proposals of each party in its electoral program on tax matters to highlight the great differences. The battle is being fought, above all, in the commitment of the right to continue reducing the regional sections of the IRPF, while the left-wing block is committed to progressivity. Another point of distancing is the wealth tax or the great fortunes and the inheritance tax. The right maintains its bonuses, while the progressive bloc proposes to recover its taxes based on the wealth of each citizen.
The PP maintains in its electoral program the idea of continuing to reduce the regional section of personal income tax, with a reduction of half a point for all taxpayers regardless of their income. Currently, the autonomous sections of Madrid are among the lowest in Spain, with a minimum rate of 19% and a maximum marginal rate of 45%. Ayuso's team agrees to deflate the rate whenever inflation exceeds 2%. In addition, they intend to resume their idea of offering a 20% deduction to foreigners who settle in Madrid.
On the other hand, Ayuso's party supports its proposal to discount the wealth tax to 100%, despite the fact that Pedro Sánchez launched the Solidarity tax for Great Fortunes to deactivate said bonuses in autonomous communities, such as Madrid and Andalusia.
Mónica García's tax program proposes to increase collection by 2,910 million euros with an almost comprehensive reform. She describes the current tax model as "insufficient, unfair and regressive." For this reason, the main opposition party so far seeks to implement a series of new taxes such as the use of plastic, gambling, a tax on carbonated drinks or a tourist tax. Even introducing a tax on large commercial surfaces, as exists in Asturias, Aragon and Catalonia, and with the proceeds give a check for 100 euros to people with low incomes to spend in small businesses.
Personal income tax only proposes a progressive revision of the bonuses applied to the upper sections; but they maintain that 1% of the population benefits from the 100% wealth tax bonus, that is, large estates. Hence, his bet is to "eliminate it" and that the solidarity tax is applied to the great fortunes.
For its part, the PSOE wants the taxes to be paid to be based on the income of each citizen. Hence its motto is that "those who have more wealth pay more". This fiscal justice translates into a proposal for personal income tax to increase the exempt minimum and create two new sections for high incomes: a new section starting at 78,000 euros, and a second section up to 150,000 euros, with a maximum rate of 22.5 %. In addition, it intends to expand the base of the first tranche, going from 12,450 to 13,000 euros. As for the wealth tax, it seeks to recover it, with a minimum exemption of 1.2 million.
Regarding the inheritance and gift tax, the PSOE wants to incorporate progressivity, although no person with inheritances of less than one million euros pay more taxes than at present. Starting at one million euros, the tax bonus would be progressively reduced, so that large inheritances pay more.
The purple party, with Alejandra Jacinto as a candidate for the Community of Madrid, defends in its electoral program the revision of bonuses and increasing progressivity in the autonomous sections of the IRPF. They explain that Madrid has only five sections, while other Autonomous Communities have up to ten, as is the case of the Valencian Community or Aragon. Specifically, in the Community of Madrid "it is proposed to progressively increase the rates of the upper tranches".
Regarding property taxes and inheritance and donations, its program includes eliminating deductions and bonuses for high incomes.
One of the bets of Podemos is green taxation. And to make the ecological transition, he defends the creation of a new tax on companies that install renewable energy, as well as IBI bonuses to promote electricity self-consumption.
They also defend promoting the tax on sugary drinks, the tax on gambling or the tourist tax.
And as a novelty they propose "the Amazon tax or TREC, e-commerce delivery tax", which would consist of creating a tax on the billing of postal operators that bill more than 1 million euros in cities for the use of public space in home deliveries. In fact, Podemos recalls that in Barcelona it has already been set at 1.25% based on the turnover of 200 million from the main operators to reach a collection of 2.6 million.
As for VOX. Rocío Monasterio defends among her programmatic proposals "a radical and immediate lowering of taxes, which relieves SMEs, the self-employed and workers".
Monasterio's proposal in this week's television debate was "to slim down the public administration and reduce advertising by 100 million" to have more economic resources for the Community of Madrid.
Regarding specific personal income tax measures, Vox has not detailed them, but it maintains the wealth tax bonus and promises to raise the inheritance tax bonus between siblings to 99%, when the PP in that case promises to extend it from 25% to 50 %.
