The government delegates supervision to the Competition Commission and the Bank of Spain so that customers are not passed on, subject to a 150% fine
The coalition government has registered in Congress, through its two parliamentary groups, the bill that will apply the new tax to banks and energy companies with which it aims to raise 7,000 million euros over two years. And it has done so with the details of the proposal, which contains important novelties in light of the political narrative that has sprung up around this measure, and its impact. In the first place, the type of tax applied will be different in one case: the banks will have to pay 4.8% and the energy companies 1.2%.
In addition to this tax type, the second major novelty lies in where the tax works. That will not affect the ‘profits that have fallen from the sky’, nor the extraordinary profits that these companies have made in recent months, the government believes. The income they earn from each of their businesses is taxed. That is, on the billing of banking or energy. In the financial sector, the tax will be levied on the amount each entity obtains, both in the interest it applies to its credits and in the commissions it charges its customers. In the case of energy companies, they will be taxed on the sales made in each period, in particular on the net turnover.
The Treasury has abandoned the idea of taxing profits, such as corporate taxes, conscious of the difficulty posed by this option given the range of financial opportunities companies have to make a profit, which relies heavily on elements such as extraordinary sales or purchases and other types of promotions. They do this, sources of the treasury indicate, on a much more objective and clearer data, such as the invoicing every time.
The affected companies are the major players in both sectors, although there will also be differences. In the case of banking, entities that pay an amount of interest and net commissions (the so-called brokerage margin) of more than EUR 1,000 million per year pay the new tax. In this way, some of the Spanish medium-sized banks will be excluded. For energy companies (including electricity, oil and gas), the annual turnover for which they have to pay the tax is set at 800 million euros.
The other big question is how the government restricts it so much that these companies pass the cost of this tax on to their customers. The reality of the statement indicates that this practice is expressly prohibited. But nothing more for now. Because the Treasury delegates the task of oversight to the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) and the Bank of Spain so that this does not happen. These organizations will be responsible for developing a formula that determines how to identify this practice and then monitor it so that it is not implemented. In any case, the law will apply a 150% penalty to the increase in charges transferred to customers, either through electricity tariffs, or through higher interest rates or bank commissions.
PSOE parliamentary spokesman Patxi López has been tasked with submitting the bill to the Congress Registry along with United We Can’s Pablo Echenique. In his debut as a socialist spokesman, López has indicated that this tax is being applied to “make effective” the solidarity of large groups with the rest of society and to be able to finance part of the measures of the anti-crisis plan. “We are not going to charge any financial institution,” López also said after the presentation.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
