The coronavirus pandemic dealt a significant blow to the tax authorities’ collection capacity in 2020. Despite this, the government revenue debacle has been partly mitigated by the planning for the settlement of various taxes. This is the case for personal income tax, where last spring’s Income Campaign showed an increase in revenues with a result three times higher than the advance payment of revenues, corresponding to the year 2019, prior to the crisis. from the Covid.
This is derived from the data provided yesterday by the Tax and Customs Administration, which practically closed the Income Campaign held last year on the tax data of the previous year. The campaign concludes with the return of € 10.4 billion to approximately 14 million taxpayers in a year marked by the proliferation of telematics filings in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.
For starters, the number of filed returns increased by 2% to reach a new record of more than 21.12 million. Of this, 68.5% involved a repayment request (14.47 million), while the remaining 31.5% (5.64 million) resulted in a credit to the Treasury.
In spite of everything, the campaign ends with a higher increase in taxpayers and amounts payable by the Treasury than among those who had and received results in their favor from the tax authorities. To understand this phenomenon, keep in mind that the campaign will end in a fiscal year, 2019, in which the economy slowed but still grew at 2% as it was not yet affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the liquidation takes place in a year when the economy suffered an environmental disaster of 11.2%, according to official government forecasts.
For example, the number of declarations to be submitted grew by 5.44% compared to last year to 5.64 million and the amounts to be received by the treasury by 6.08% to 12,725 million euros.
On the other hand, repayable proceeds decreased by 0.12% to 14.47 million, while the amount repaid was 11,190 million euros, an advance of 3.17% compared to the result of the previous campaign, which corresponds to from 2018.
From there, the Treasury has already returned 93% of the amounts claimed (10 428 million) to 97% of the stakeholders (14.06 million taxpayers).
Incidence in the box
This evolution, with a greater increase in the balances to be deposited into the public treasury than those to be repaid to the taxpayer, explains in part why the Treasury is aiming for a year of double-digit decline in GDP with a reduction of the collection of only 7.6%.
For example, at the end of November, the treasury had experienced a 9% decline in tax collection, from 197,853 million in the first 11 months of 2019 to 179,996 million on the same date in 2020. In the case of the income tax, it showed the comparative report showed a year-over-year increase of 1% to 82,358 million. Even a homogeneous comparison for calendar purposes limits the fall in personal income tax income in 2020 to 0.3% at the end of November. A limited impact given the severity of the economic crisis unleashed by the pandemic and the fact that, as the tax authorities acknowledge, with the activation of ERTE as a safety net for employment, “ they went from wages with deductions to benefits with little or no retention ”.
Remote declarations
In turn, the 2019 income campaign was characterized by the increase in electronic returns. We must not forget that the process was started in the context of the closure of the offices of the tax authorities, during the state of alarm last spring. Although the Treasury closed the postponement of the campaign. For example, the declarations made via the telephone service “We call you” have been multiplied by six to 1,155 million.
For their part, the returns via the website of the Tax Authorities (19.28 million, 6.9% more) and those via the mobile application (another 365,000, 25.8% more) reached 93% of the total of all presented, compared to 88% represented by these electronic declarations in the previous year.
New requirement for the Sicav to pay 1% tax
The PSOE has tabled several amendments to the anti-fraud tax law being processed by the Congress of Deputies, including tightening the requirements for collective investment institutions, the Sicav, to pay 1% tax in associations. Although a minimum of 100 partners is already required to ensure that this tax benefit does not benefit all types of vehicles, the Socialists propose to require a minimum participation of EUR 2,500 per shareholder (EUR 12,500 in the case of Sicav per compartment. ) for avoiding the existence of so-called “mariachi” participants, which only seem to allow the principal investor to pay less taxes. The PSOE proposes that the amendment be accompanied by a transitional regime of six months, a gateway in which the dissolution and liquidation of a Sicav is for this reason exempt from the tax on transfer of assets and documented legal acts. In turn, the partners do not need to integrate the income from the liquidation into the income tax base, corporate tax or non-resident income, provided the money is reinvested within seven months. Its use for the purchase of securities will be exempt from the new Tobin tax.