What do we do with those who don't want to pay taxes?

I'm meeting more and more people who are opposed to paying taxes. Some, young people, say that with their meager earnings, they only need their taxes withheld; after all, they don't see many public services that benefit them in terms of benefits. Between pensions and healthcare, it seems everything goes to the elderly. It's also easy to see how many citizens and professionals continue with the "with or without a receipt" policy to lower service prices. Finally, I know many wealthy people who don't pay taxes (for me, this is the best definition of who is rich!), since they are rich enough to afford the complexities of tax engineering and the tax advisors who maintain it. And yet, they find it all worthwhile in terms of the savings they make by not paying taxes. And some who do pay taxes, however, complain bitterly when they see how others, more daring, opt for the safe route of tax evasion and avoidance and barely pay any taxes, just to slap down the compliant taxpayers by demonstrating that they aren't "smart enough."

Another source of this lament comes from business owners who, for various reasons, are unable to take advantage of the state-sanctioned legal status of family businesses. This is a privilege that some business owners managed to secure, from conservative nationalism to the VIP box at the Bernabéu stadium. The family business system is clearly advantageous, and currently, although its oversight is in the hands of the Generalitat (the Catalan government), it doesn't seem to be finding a way to correct its current shortcomings. strainer Assets that are subject to a heavily incentivized wealth tax then escape inheritance tax and, after a while, reappear as dividends or capital gains; these are taxed at a lower rate than other income, particularly employment income, and no compensatory supplementary tax has yet been found to address this.

European acceptance of the special regime for family businesses stems from those who believed it would protect small and medium-sized enterprises by maintaining assets linked to and controlled by the business. This is far removed from the current reality of how large corporations exploit it.

In any case, it's worth clarifying that the current fiscal trend in our country is far from healthy. It makes no sense to combat the Catalan government's underfunding by increasing the tax burden with high surcharges and rates, or by maintaining taxes that others subsidize. This results in a tax structure that is unfavorable to retaining and attracting talent, unable to counter the tax dumping that other territories exert on our economy, both in Spain and in a European Union with very little harmonization.

A wealth tax that makes very little distinction regarding the ownership of the aforementioned family business; a treatment designed in most countries for small and medium-sized enterprises that retain control, as we mentioned, and not for large companies with diverse shareholders that have numerous loopholes to exploit the linkage of different assets, even to the point of abuse. For example, in the form of assets held in certain trusts or with the Public Treasury, which to this day cannot be inspected by the Generalitat (Catalan government) due to the lack of information provided by the State Tax Administration Agency.

I wish we could reinstate the wealth tax by removing that specific exemption for family businesses (with the current loss of a third of tax revenue) and streamlining its application across the board for everyone, businesses and citizens alike. We could even significantly increase the tax-free threshold, while maintaining the tax's progressivity, aiming for a gradual reduction of rates to a marginal maximum. All of this would help dispel the argument that, due to the abuse of this system, some feel discriminated against and would also prefer not to pay wealth tax, calling for its abolition in the meantime.