“A tax policy like that of Madrid or Valencia would make it more attractive for companies to return”

2023-12-07 06:00:50

The historic Catalan employers’ association, Promotion of Work, promises to continue making tax cuts its banner during 2024. The president of this business organization with 252 years of history, Josep Sánchez Bookadvances to EL PERIÓDICO which will take, if necessary, its challenge against the estate tax until the ECHR. He also trusts that the decisive weight in Congress of parties like PNV o together during this legislature reduce the scope of measures such as the reduction of the work week at 37.5 hours.

How do you see the Catalan economy?

We are not going towards the precipice by any means, I am optimistic, but all the forecasts indicate that we are heading towards a slowdown. There is great uncertainty due to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. For this reason, the budgetary approaches made by both the new Government and the Generalitat are very important. We ask them for rigor, to correct the public deficit and reduce the debt.

What measures do you ask of the new Government?

Policies that promote economic activity, such as fiscal measures that encourage private investment to create high-quality and indefinite jobs. In this way we would reinforce social cohesion and reduce social inequalities.

What kind of tax measures are those?

Deactivate tax increases on banks or energy companies. Although at the time it could be understandable that whoever earned the most, contributed the most, although we at Foment did not share it, now it does not make sense. It would also be positive if the Government anticipated the ruling of the Constitutional Court [donde Foment ha impulsado un recurso] and abolish the estate tax, which is confiscatory. It would be a good declaration of intentions if Sánchez wants to promote a ‘business friendly’ economic policy during this term.

In short, reduce taxes

Not only reduce taxes, but treat them differently. Most family businesses, many of them small, never distribute dividends since they reinvest them. And reinvested profits should be worth less. Also raise the freedom of amortization, with the limits that we can agree on. All of this generates wealth and good jobs.

“Reinvested profits should be quoted less. Freedom of amortization could also be considered, with the limits that we can agree upon”

He asks the Government to reduce the deficit and debt, while lowering taxes, which means less income. How can both things be compatible?

Rationalizing your expenses. The CEOE has a report that quantifies 60,000 million euros in savings if administrations reduced duplication and improved their efficiency in public spending. And pursuing the underground economy, which some organizations estimate at the equivalent of 25% of GDP. For those of us who pay taxes this is not serious.

Are you asking the Government for more tax inspectors?

More inspectors and above all political will. The Treasury has computing power that no private company has and can know perfectly well what everyone does with their money. I have not seen from either the PP or the PSOE even a recognition that an underground economy exists. And from there, let the Government put all the mechanisms in place to bring it to light.

“I have not seen from either the PP or the PSOE even a recognition that an underground economy exists”

Returning to your demands for tax reductions, are we going to a legislature of downward competition between autonomous communities?

If the Government put the lights on, it would eliminate the wealth tax for everyone and thus there would be no fiscal war between autonomies. Foment del Treball has launched an all-out fight against the wealth tax and we will not stop until it disappears from Spanish legislation. If the Constitutional Court does not agree with us and declares it illegal, which we are sure it will, we would take the case to the Strasbourg Human Rights Court.

Another option to end tax competition would be for all citizens to pay it.

It has no logic, it does not exist anywhere else in the world and on top of that it collects little and the same people always pay.

Speaking of competition between territories, one of the investiture agreements is that the Government promotes the return of the business headquarters to Catalonia that left after the 1-O referendum. One of his electoral promises when he entered Foment. How should the Government proceed?

There should be no coercive measures for them to return, nor incentives. Companies will return when the ideal political and economic conditions really exist. What involves fully normalizing the relationship between the Government and the Generalitat and completely ruling out a unilateral declaration of independence.

Don’t those conditions exist now?

The proof that this is not the case is that none of the companies that changed their headquarters have returned. The climate of understanding since I became president of Foment in 2018 has improved significantly. And by the end of this term I understand that all the conditions will be met for companies to return. There is economic normality.

“By the end of this term I understand that all the conditions will be in place for companies to return”

And political normality?

At the time we applauded the dialogue table promoted by ERC and now we will have two dialogue tables with Junts. That’s positive. However, it is also important that in order for them to return, the Generalitat applies a ‘business friendly’ policy. And one way would be to subsidize the most illegal, confiscatory and unfair tax, the estate tax.

That is, if Catalonia had a fiscal policy more similar to Madrid, would it be easier for the headquarters to return?

Yes, if we had a fiscal policy like that of Madrid or Valencia, that makes it more attractive for companies and their managers to return.

Talk about the need to normalize relations, does amnesty help?

I will not make any statement about the amnesty, neither positive nor negative. Foment is the largest house of Catalan businessmen and we do not want to focus on political considerations, only on economic issues.

At the time Antonio Garamendi [presidente de la CEOE] He applauded the pardons if they served to normalize relations

The CEOE made a statement in which at no time did it comment on the amnesty…

Not explicitly, but implicitly

As Foment, we claimed within the CEOE that we had to speak out on what worries business owners the most. Like the pact between the PSOE and Sumar, clearly interventionist in the country’s economy. We are very concerned that they have agreed to lower the working day by law to 37.5 hours a week.

Regardless of the forms, do companies have room to apply this reduction?

We should not talk about reducing the day, but about reordering it. We have demonstrated through collective bargaining that in many sectors it is already possible to work less than 37 and a half hours a week. It is through social dialogue that we must determine where we can work less, where we cannot, and where it is better to organize in another way.

“The parliamentary weight of PNV and Junts in this legislature is a positive, pragmatic factor that can cause a change of attitude in the President of the Government”

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So, if it ends up being approved, it will not force thousands of companies to close.

It will not occur. From the beginning I said that this was pure electoral program. The parliamentary weight of PNV and Junts in this legislature is a positive, pragmatic factor that can cause a change of attitude in the President of the Government. I am very convinced that between them they will achieve that balanced economic policy that we businessmen pursue.