Is it true that the fiscal privileges of the church in the Spanish State have ended?

2023-04-18 02:06:14

If something has characterized the PSOE-Unidas Podemos coalition government throughout its legislature, it is the enormous publicity and propaganda that have surrounded each of the measures that have been announced.

By Antonio Rodriguez / Red Stream

On May 29, 2020, the Minimum Vital Income (IMV) was approved, described by former Vice President Pablo Iglesias and Minister of Labor Yolanda Díaz as “the greatest advance in social rights since the dependency law”. But a few months later, reality belied the propaganda. The UGT, a union not at all suspected of anti-government positions, declared that of the almost 715,000 applications submitted, only 32,629 had been resolved and, of the latter, more than 28,000 had been denied.

In December of the same year, the new Labor Reform was agreed, which in the mouth of Yolanda Díaz was not about “a touch up”, but of “a fundamental paradigm shift”. “We have achieved in one year of Labor Reform what was not achieved during the previous 40 years.” With the new Reform (which in the end was not repealed despite being part of the investiture agreement) they tried to convince us that precariousness and temporary employment were going to disappear. However, with the passage of time it was amply demonstrated that companies continue to have different mechanisms in their hands to continue perpetuating that temporary nature under the mask of a fixed contract: discontinuous fixed contracts. This type of modality, although it is considered indefinite because it does not have an end date, in reality it is not. In practice, they carry out a seasonal activity for a few months and are without work for a large part of the year. Another conclusion that we can draw from this reform is that the second cause of poverty in employment has increased: partiality. Which leads us once again to think that job insecurity is simply moving from one modality to another.

The Democratic Memory Law, which according to Minister Félix Bolaños «The page was definitely turned from the darkest period in our history, from the Dictatorship and the Civil War, and we embraced and vindicated the best of our history, the people who fought for democracy, for the Transition, for the Amnesty Law and by the Constitution. And that in the opinion of the majority of the memorialist groups, the main stumbling block remains unresolved: the repeal of the Amnesty Law, which was a final law to absolve the crimes of the dictatorship and protect those criminals who today continue in positions of enormous power. A law that to this day continues to be one of the main obstacles to facilitating truth, justice and reparation for the victims of the Civil War and Francoism.

Or The Housing Law and the rise in the SMI that were also sold as a huge advance for the working class and have been nothing more than crumbs and a new breach of another of their star promises such as the question of housing where the number of evictions has not stopped growing.

In this sense, and as part of this triumphal balance of the government, in recent days we have witnessed a new pact reached between the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the apostolic nuncio to end the tax privileges of the Church in the Spanish State. : “No one will be able to say that the Church is in a privileged situation anymore” declared the vice-secretary for Economic Affairs of the Episcopal Conference, Fernando Giménez Barriocanal.

But, is it true that the fiscal privileges of the Church in the Spanish State have ended? Or, on the contrary, are we witnessing once again a new self-promotion campaign to which we are already accustomed? Let’s see:

The government promised in its program to review the taxation of the Church and to remove the exemption from the IBI in buildings not dedicated to worship, but far from that commitment, what the government and the Catholic institution have agreed to is the waiver of the exemption from two small local taxes that are actually «the chocolate of the parrot« (1). For Juanjo Picó, spokesperson for Europa Laica, it is about “a smokescreen to hide other more important issues to be resolved regarding the Church-State relationship”. Your organization demands the repeal of all the 1979 Agreements with the Holy See «as an inexcusable and democratic condition to advance in the freedom of conscience and the secularism of the State».

In reality, the Church will begin to pay two taxes from which it had been exempt during the last decades: the Construction, Installations and Works (ICIO) and the Special Contributions, which according to government calculations, will contribute to the coffers about 16 million euros per year. That is to say, the Church will have to pay the corresponding rate when carrying out works on its property or in areas or elements of municipal ownership but which are exclusive to this entity. The scenery made by the Church and the Government where they highlighted that the ICIO tax is now going to be paid, hides the fact that this matter was already questioned by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), in a 2017 ruling that forced the bishops to to pay said fee due to some expansion works at a school in Getafe after a complaint from the council itself.

On the other hand, the Church will continue without paying taxes on its real estate such as the Property and Real Estate Tax (IBI), that of Inheritance, Donations and Patrimonial Transfers, which certifies that the Church continues to maintain enormous tax advantages in the Spanish State. Something that the Executive considered modifying in 2018 but that has not been carried out throughout his government. For Secular Europe, only from the IBI, there are more than 700 million euros a year that are left to enter the public coffers, including rural and urban goods, destined for worship or not. Specifically, in the five largest Spanish cities, according to data from the city councils themselves, they exceed 15 million a year. It must be taken into account that between 1998 and 2015, the registrations of goods carried out by the Church were 34,961. Of these, 20,014 were temples or complementary dependencies and 14,947 of other characteristics (land, lots, houses, premises, etc.). The vast majority (30,335) were carried out solely with “the faith of the corresponding ecclesiastical authority.” That is, to certify the ownership of any property without needing a property title.

The Church hides behind the fact that all non-profit entities benefit from a special tax regime established in the famous patronage law (2), considering that they provide a service to society and contribute to the common good. An argument that lacks weight since the immense number of assets owned by the Church throughout the Spanish territory cannot be equated with that of non-profit organizations, party foundations or unions, which also enjoy this advantage. fiscal. The Church is still currently one of the largest property owners in the Spanish State.

Finally, note that last February, the Episcopal Conference reported that the total amount assigned to the Church through the 2022 Income Statement stood at 320,723,062 euros, 8.5% more than the year former. The IRPF is a privilege that the Catholic Church continues to have against the non-denominational nature of the State.

(1) “The parrot’s chocolate”

It is an expression that is used to designate that situation in which they try to balance the domestic economy by doing without only small expenses, without going into the big ones.

In eighteenth-century Madrid, a treat was not such if there was not a cup of chocolate as part of it. The product was expensive and thus, habitually, the Indians flaunted their wealth. Some of these Indians had brought a parrot from their time in America, which they proudly displayed in their living room. The parrot, inside its luxurious cage, had a container of chocolate for it to peck at, despite the cost of the delicacy.

When one of these wealthy people who had offered chocolate everywhere, even to their parrot, began to decline financially, they deprived the poor animal of whim. But he continued to offer chocolate to the guests at his parties, since otherwise his deprivation would be exposed.

(2) Patronage Law

The purpose of this Law is to regulate the tax regime of non-profit entities defined therein, in consideration of their social function, activities and characteristics. Similarly, its purpose is to regulate tax incentives for patronage.

Published on 04/12/2023 at corrientoroja.net