The Catalan government has created a new commissioner for the Catalan Treasury (no timeline yet).

BarcelonaThe details of the unique financing agreed upon for the Bilateral Commission between the State and the Generalitat (Catalan Government) remain up in the air, but in the meantime, the Government is taking another step toward preparing the Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) for the future that awaits it. The Executive Council today approved the creation of two new advisory bodies that will help steer toward the new Catalan Treasury: a commissioner, who will be appointed by tax management expert Santiago Ramón Arizón, and an advisory council made up of independent experts in taxation, technology, and communication. Neither has a work schedule yet, but they will directly support the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, to make the new ATC more efficient and effective within the framework of the new financing model. The objective is to allocate "all the necessary resources" to have it ready to collect all taxes "as soon as possible," according to the investiture agreement between the PSC and ERC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) from almost a year ago. This is what the spokesperson for the Government and Minister of Territory, Silvia Paneque, said at a press conference.

On the day of the Bilateral Commission, Esquerra complained about the lack of specificity in the State-Generalitat agreement, which leaves Ordinality and also the collection of personal income tax are in the airThe master plan for how the ATC will begin to "progressively" collect personal income tax was supposed to help remedy this, but its timeline is also currently up in the air. Paneque did not guarantee this Tuesday that it will be approved before July 31, as the Government committed to do with the ERC. "I am not in a position to give a firm date," he asserted. Regarding the criticism of Salvador Illa's government from the autonomous regions—including the Socialist Asturias and Castilla-La Mancha—the government spokesperson assured that the president will take advantage of each visit he makes to Spain to continue "explaining" his model and why it "doesn't harm" the rest of the territories.

The Commissioner's Profile

In any case, the Government has chosen a technical profile to lead the new commissioner. Santiago Ramón, a senior telecommunications engineer, was previously responsible for taxes at IBM for Spain, Portugal, and Greece. He has worked for 25 years in the world of consulting and project management. He has developed tax management and collection systems in Egypt, Madrid, and Catalonia, and will coordinate the work for the new ATC directly under Romero's orders. Ramón also has experience collaborating with various administrations to implement contracting and human resources systems. The appointment of the commissioner was agreed upon with ERC, but the name of this expert came out of a process of consultation. headhunter to locate a professional with specific knowledge for this position. Its immediate objective is to conduct an initial diagnosis of the ATC situation, develop an action plan with concrete strategies, and ensure the training of its staff, in collaboration with the state administration. It will meet once a month. This group will work in parallel to the other group of experts on singular financing that the Government already launched in the first months of the legislature to work on the main lines of the new model. The first group of experts has been in "permanent contact" with the minister to offer "advice" for the negotiation of the new financing; however, no report on their work has yet been made public. Initially, Romero assured that it would be published between May and June; before the arrival of this minister or the committee itself are kind enough to present a document, they will do so."