You can contribute your tax contributions in one autonomous community, pay taxes in another, and use the public services of a third. I know the case, for example, of a person who is a real resident of Valladolid; there he contributes his tax contributions to his office, works there, and receives income and capital gains from the resources he uses. However, he is a tax resident in Madrid, where he owns an apartment as an investment and where he occasionally travels by high-speed train. He knows what he must do to justify this to the Tax Agency, to show that he lives in the Community of Madrid at least half the year, since he pays less income and assets there. Thus, the costs of the services related to his activity are borne by Castile and León, and the Community of Madrid collects the money. But his self-declared administrative residence is in Ibiza! He travels there during the summers and on more than one weekend, because he thus benefits from transport discounts that his tax contribution doesn't help finance. As an administrative resident in the Balearic Islands, this community receives the corresponding regional funding, based on the registered population. Therefore, his residence legal It's not really anywhere. It's not where it's listed, in Valladolid: there's no family doctor here, although if you need to go in for emergencies like displaced citizenNor is it where he pays taxes, in Madrid, where, with the tax savings, he can pay for private healthcare. And it's not there where his public services are funded, but in the Balearic Islands, which receive an income without assuming any costs, since, after all, the transport subsidy is paid by the State! How can we be stuck in this frenzy of royal, fiscal, and administrative residences, without a minimum cross-check of data or identifiable responsibilities in the financing of a welfare state against which many people, like the one in the aforementioned case, practice their particular tax dumping?
A separate issue is the tax behavior of artists, digital creators, and athletes. Practices vary here. YouTubers Taxpayers based in Andorra, with a maximum rate of 10%, or artists who create companies to manage their assets, such as the singer Rosalía, make headlines, fueling public debate. Furthermore, the courts do not always side with the Tax Agency. Dani Pedrosa, a resident of the United Kingdom and later Switzerland, was accused of concealing ties. emotional with Spain, but the National Court has recognized his residency abroad, and the Treasury must return millions of pounds to him. Xabi Alonso also maintained his position until the Supreme Court and obtained a full acquittal.
The underlying question, in any case, is whether the current lack of control over where one earns one's income, where one lives, and where one pays taxes is reasonable. Not even public officials are required to live where they perform their assigned public duties! Certainly, in the case of artists and athletes, the fact that taxation does not take into account the uniqueness of their activities, which concentrate their income in a very short period of their working lives, is an incentive for certain practices. But not in many other cases. And the law must have a logic that must be followed, and in no case should it benefit the clever and the opportunistic.
Added to this is a determining factor: Spain applies some of the highest marginal personal income tax rates in Europe, which can exceed 47% in many autonomous communities and reach up to 50% in some territories. Other neighboring countries maintain more moderate rates, such as Portugal or Italy, or offer special regimes for professionals with extraordinary incomes, such as the pension system. non-domiciled in the United Kingdom, or the talent return programs in Italy and Portugal. This differential makes relocation more attractive for certain taxpayers. However, the tax dumping practiced by some regions within the Spanish state is incomprehensible. Those who criticize this practice from outside Spain against Spain make it possible within Spain. Perhaps it's because, to preach what it doesn't practice, the right has Cristóbal Montoro as its saint of reference.
In conclusion, tax optimization in the law should not be stigmatized or turned into a media battle. However, we must warn of the risks of creating artificial structures that can lead to criminal proceedings and irreversible damage to our image. The underlying debate is, on the one hand, whether our tax system can respond to such diverse professional realities. Only with more flexible and adapted taxation can we retain talent, reduce conflict, and guarantee a balanced contribution. On the other hand, it is necessary to end the tax distortions created by the territorial tax system itself, in which decisions are governed more by tax and administrative excess than by economic rationality, and from which the most privileged classes benefit, demonstrating their lack of solidarity with the rest of the population.
