Antoni Bassas' analysis: 'Demagogy with the IRPF of the minimum wage'

This morning Sanchez and Feijoo have had it, in the first control session of the year in Congress. Feijóo, of course, took advantage of the spectacle given yesterday by two ministers, the spokesperson, from the PSOE, and the vice-president, from Sumar, contradicting the press conference after the cabinet meeting, on the decision to make those earning the minimum wage pay personal income tax. And Sánchez has responded with the textbook: with the PP, workers who earned the minimum wage did not have the problem of having to pay taxes because the popular government froze it.

Feijóo: "He confuses serving the Spanish people with botching things up. Keeping half of the minimum wage increase is neither progressive nor social justice. By the way, the embarrassment that the Sumar ministers made yesterday with the PSOE ministers, Mrs. Díaz, would not have been fooled by Pablo Iglesias."

Sánchez: "Now I understand why you froze the SMI when you were in power, so that it would not be subject to IRPF withholding. It is much better to live on €735 (2018) per month than on the €1,184 per month now. Your Honor, we are having this debate because the Spanish government has raised it by 6% in the last 7 years."

And so the political course in Congress has resumed, that is, without any news.

What happened yesterday hurts the government. It is not popular to raise the minimum wage by 50 euros but leave it at 35. Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, lives off the flagship measures (minimum wage, 37 and a half hours a week) and needs to remember that on the left of the PSOE there is parliamentary life and that it is not that of Podemos.

At the same time, some data. Let us bear in mind that a taxpayer with a partner and a three-year-old child will not pay. That only 20% of those earning the minimum wage will have to pay taxes. And that in Catalonia, they will pay more.

As you can see on this page:

According to the calculation of 16,576 gross euros per year, in the case of a recipient of the SMI without dependent children, he will pay 357 euros in taxes in Catalonia. With the aggravating factor that life is more expensive in Catalonia and, therefore, for the same salary, there is less purchasing power in Catalonia.

Once the decision is put in the laboratory of theory, it is only fair that everyone contributes. Otherwise, there is no welfare state. The concept of "free education" and "free health care" has done us a lot of harm. Nothing is free, and someone has to pay for it. We have no idea what public services cost us. Paying taxes is a good way to understand this.

Another thing is that the discussion of the taxation of the minimum wage is a discussion between the poor, that is, we argue about whether it is too little or too much, absolutely controlled by the payroll, while there are people who earn much more and who, proportionally, do not contribute as much. The millionaire Warren Buffett: "My secretary pays more taxes than I do." If people who earn a salary did not feel so strangled when they pay income tax, it would be easier to defend that when the minimum wage starts to be decent, it should also be taxed.

Good morning.