Catalan Government invites tax payments in order to build own tax revenue agency

Originally published in VilaWeb on April 20, 2013

The Catalan Government will transfer the payments to the Spanish State but will be able to take advantage of additional fiscal data

This summer, the Catalan Government will have a legal protocol ready so that city and town governments and businesses can pay their taxes through the Generalitat (Catalan Government), said Executive Councilor Francesc Homs, in an interview on Catalunya Ràdio. He clarified that once the Catalan Tributary Agency receives the monies, they will then transfer them to the Spanish agency so as to not incur any illegalities, but that nonetheless the information provided to the Generalitat might later be useful for building a Catalan tax collecting agency.

That will allow them to "gain volume, increase knowledge and statistical information" for the future, said Homs.

Just yesterday, the mayors of 11 municipalities (Arenys de Munt, Llinars del Vallès, Premià de Dalt, Alella, Gallifa, Sant Jaume de Llierca, Ripoll, Campdevànol, Viladamat, Sant Julià del Llor and Bonmatí i Marçà) deposited the tax payments generated by their local governments with the Catalan Tributary Agency. With this symbolic act, according to the Catalunya Diu Prou [Catalonia says Enough] group, they want to show that it's possible to legally pay taxes directly to the Generalitat. The government will transfer these monies to the State, the same way they did last year with the amounts from the first towns and businesses who decided to exercise "fiscal sovereignty". Regardless, the city and town governments have encouraged the Executive to direct the monies toward the "country's necessities".

Following the same vein as the system described today by Francesc Homs, the Asociació de Municipis per la Independència [Association of Municipalities for Independence, or AMI] wants all of the associated municipalities to come to agreement in order to exercise their fiscal sovereignty. In that way, they would begin to file their VAT and Income tax returns with the Catalan tax agency. Despite the fact that these monies would be eventually sent to Madrid, Catalonia would have an idea of the volume of receipts generated.