The omnibus decree approved yesterday by the last Council of Ministers of the year included the extension of the temporary taxes on banks and energy during 2024. On this point the coalition did agree. However, the Ministries of Finance and for the Ecological Transition imposed that the next general budget law of the State will include "an incentive" that the large energy companies can take advantage of in order to lower the tax bill retroactively from next January 1 if they make "strategic investments" in industrial decarbonisation projects. It was a demand demanded by the sector, led by Repsol, which went so far as to warn that this levy "conditions" its investments. The second vice-president, Yolanda Díaz, showed the rejection of the decision at the last meeting of the president of the central government, Pedro Sánchez, with his ministers and then stated that Sumar does not share that "a fair and green taxation be a problem for the investment”. The financial institutions, for their part, rejected the extension of the temporary lien and the electricity companies assured that extending it "makes investments more difficult".
Sánchez, who appeared in Moncloa after the Council of Ministers, also advanced the commitment of the Spanish Government to review the two taxes again so that they become "permanent" from 2025. In the same way, also tax arrangements are planned with the Basque Country and Navarre. Treasury has collected 2,900 million with the two levies in 2023.
The coalition Executive also agreed to extend sine diel the temporary solidarity tax on the large fortunes, which has collected 623 million this year. According to the agreement, it will be extended "until the review of property taxation takes place in the context of the reform of the regional financing system".
In the omnibus decree, which has a fiscal cost of 5,300 million, according to government sources, and which will have to be validated in January in Congress, the Central Government included the revaluation of pensions in accordance with the average CPI in the month of November, which was 3.8%, the extension until June of the reduction in VAT on food and the progressive withdrawal of tax credits related to energy. The tax bill for households and businesses will rise from January 1 due to the gradual withdrawal of subsidies affecting the VAT on electricity, gas, the special tax on electricity and the tax on the value of electricity production. Sánchez explained that this decision is motivated by "the gradual drop in energy prices".
Subsidies on public transport, including free Commuter and medium-distance train services for recurring users, remain on the same terms during 2024. The Central Administration will also continue to subsidize transport tickets dependent on communities by 30% autonomous communities and municipalities, aid conditional on an additional discount of 20%. The latter was another point of debate between the PSOE and Sumar, since the talks came to consider reducing aid to minors, young people and the unemployed. The Central Government estimates a cost of 1,460 million in aid to public transport during the coming year.
Sánchez also announced two new measures yesterday: the elimination of bank fees for elderly people and people with some type of disability and the transfer of the management of the minimum vital income to the autonomous communities that request it.
The president affirmed that "the Government will continue the transformative agenda" that it has deployed during the past legislature. He added that the Executive "will never abdicate its main task: to protect citizens with brave measures when and where necessary". And he concluded by affirming that "there is no dichotomy between social justice and economic growth; we can grow with social justice".
The Council of Ministers approved at the last meeting of the year the extension of the general State budgets for 2023, pending the presentation of the bill, which is already being prepared in the ministries. The fourth vice-president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, advanced a record spending ceiling, of almost 200,000 million, pending clarification if the PP knocks down the path of stability in the Senate.
