Less than ten days from February 20thWhen the deadline for the Prepaid of the Government tax, moment from which they will be able to start their resourcesthe energy companies finalize their strategies to deal with a lien considered unfair for all of them. The big companies have shouted loud and clear -some more and others less- their opposition to the fee that intends to tax 1.2% of its sales in Spain, although none dares to be the first in turning their face up cards.
When the main employers were asked about the possibility of appeal the ministerial order of Finance by which the declaration models are regulated, as it is proposed to do banking, from the Spanish Association of Petroleum Product Operators (AOP), indicate that “at this moment” they are not in it; while Aelecthe employer of Iberdrola, Endesa and EDP, has declined to comment. her president, Marina Serranostated this Tuesday in Spanish Television that they are “analyzing” it.
Serrano He recalled that Brussels proposed to countries to create a tax for oil and gas companies (no, for electric companies) that would affect profits and not sales. For the electrical the European Commission raised a cut to the extraordinary benefits of its renewables And Nuclear, but much lower than what already exists in Spain. For his part, in an interview this week in El Economista, Francesco StaraceCEO of the owner of Endesathe Italian Enelacknowledged, in relation to a possible legal appeal against the tax, that “they are now analyzing it with everything detailwhy it’s not that easy” as it is a tax on income, something that he described as “rare”. “We are going to decide when this analysis is complete”, he added.
Most considerations from companies have always come through their top executives after analyst questions. In the results presentation which begins next week with the trickle down of the annual accounts, it is possible that they will clarify their plans. Repsol’s CEO, Joshua Jon Imazhas always been one of the more forceful by insisting in all the conferences with analysts that the oil companies They do not have extraordinary benefits and if his results are record this year (until June he earned more than during the entire previous year), so were the red numbers of 2019 and 2020 and “no government spoke of support those extraordinary losses.”
“I have no doubt that our constitutional framework, the Spanish legal system and our internal European legal system, will help us protect of possible arbitrary initiatives. Against arbitrary measures, the rule of law and legal certainty are essential, especially in the European Union. So let me say that I am comfortable,” Imaz said in July of last year. In October he insisted that he will do “everything possible” to prevent it.
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In line with Imaz is the always categorical Ignacio Sanchez Galan. The president of Iberdrolathe largest electricity company in Spain, said in the nine-month results presentation that they would go to court if the proposed tax sales and not profits It was maintained because it would go “against European directives”, alluding to Serrano’s repeated defense that Brussels advocates punishing oil companies and penalizing profits, not income. “Our lawyers they will work efficiently, as usual, to defend the shareholders,” he added in case it was not clear.
For its part, Naturgy has limited itself to including a brief reference in its first-half results indicating that the tax will have a “significant impact” on its annual accounts. The government had estimated total collection of 4,000 million in the two years that the tax will be in force, but after its parliamentary processing (where businesses outside Spain and the regulated part were exempted from the tax), the Bank of Spain halved the collection capacity of the new taxes .