Tax Cuts in Spain

 Lowering taxes is always a popular move, and that’s what the Madrid and Andalucía presidents have done: they lowered the taxes.

This benefited the wealthier residents of these communities more than the poor ones, but there’s a theory (which no one believes except the rich) called trickle-down economics. Give the rich more money and it will find its way, sooner or later, into the pockets of the poor. A joke on the rounds has a version called trickle-down dining, where you pay for the meal of the wealthiest client present, and afterwards he lets you lick his plate.

There are those who think, says an acerbic British commentator over on YouTube, that being poor is a choice.

The pressure on the Spanish Government from the conservatives was clear – with the high inflation, we need to cut our taxes.

Then the Valencia region – a left-wing autonomy – suddenly decided to join in, only, it cut the taxes of the poorer segment of the population.

Following this, and with the stern disapproval of the European Parliament, the Government threw up its hands, and announced tax cuts for the poor – and, what with one thing and another – tax increases for the wealthy.

The president of Andalucía was aghast: ‘Why don’t you leave us alone’, he said to the Government in Madrid as criticism against his tax-breaks for the wealthy arrived with some friendly-fire from the Andalusian spokesperson for Vox of all things – ‘You want to turn Andalucía into Andorra?’ he said (phew!).

Thus, the Government has announced a tax reform that means that everyone who earns less than 21,000 euros per year will pay the same taxes as those below 18,000 were paying. Those who earn less than 15,000 euros (before it was 14,000) will also be exempt from filing the Income Tax return, the IRPF. It also creates a new "solidarity" tax for billionaires who, such as in Madrid or Andalucía, have been forgiven the Wealth Tax. It also raises the personal income tax on high incomes that do not come from salary (i.e., rents and so on) and removes bonuses from large companies so that they pay their share of the Corporation Tax again. ‘These new measures will not affect annual tax returns for 2022, because the existing rules continue to apply until the end of this year’, says Sur in English.

The IVA on feminine hygiene products is also lowered from 10 to 4%.

The squabble between the PP and the PSOE over ‘who and how’, obliged President Sánchez to defend his tax reform against "the sorcerers and champions of fiscal discord who say that money is better in the pockets of citizens". The PP is meanwhile considering bringing the issue of tax increases for the wealthy to the Constitutional Court.

Maybe they’ll let us lick their plate afterwards.