Heading towards the Catalan Treasury: Generalitat and State agree to strengthen the Tax Agency in IRPF and registrations

BarcelonaGreater participation of the Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) in the IRPF campaign and in the management of the registration tax. This is the main agreement that the Government and the State have sealed within the framework of the Joint Committee on Economic Affairs this Friday at the Palau de la Generalitat, which puts an end to the first round of bilateral committees since Salvador Illa was invested. No progress has come out of the meeting in the negotiation of the new singular financing model, pending the opinion of the group of experts working on it, but there have been agreements to prepare the Catalan Tax Agency for when it fully assumes the functions of the Catalan Treasury with the collection of all taxes. This is what the Minister of Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero, and the Secretary of State for the Treasury, Jesús Gascón, have defended in a press conference after the meeting. "It is about gaining management capacity in this networking [with the State Tax Administration Agency]," the councillor stressed.

With the aim of the ATC gaining strength, the Generalitat had already announced the hiring of 102 temporary workers for this year's income tax campaign and 90 structural positions to join the staff on a permanent basis - around 850 people. Now it is making official with the State the ways of collaboration with this tax, the most massive of all, to begin moving towards the self-management of the IRPF in 2026. The agreement for the Generalitat to have a role in the management of the registration tax goes in that same direction. This is a "small" tax, Romero explained, and will serve as a test bed for this joint work while the new financing model is not applied. How will this be specified? The State and the Generalitat will sign an agreement to share taxpayer data and give Catalan technicians access to state computer applications. In addition, ATC officials will receive training to participate in the application of the tax, which collects 136 million euros in Catalonia.

"More self-government"

The Government and the State have agreed on a shared management of the registration tax, but not its transfer. Why? According to Gascón, this formula allows exploring the collaboration of both administrations to give an outlet to the "will for greater self-government" of Catalonia without approving legislative modifications. Regarding the negotiation of the new financing model, the Secretary of the Treasury has opted for prudence: he has urged to go "step by step", and regarding the possibility that the ATC will take charge of the IRPF campaign next year, he has asked to "measure very carefully" the movements to guarantee a good service and the fight against fraud. In any case, the Government expects that the report of the group of experts on individual financing will arrive between May and June, and it is sent to the deadline of the investiture agreement with ERC, the first half of 2025.

In parallel, the Spanish government maintains that its will is to reform the entire autonomous financing system, not just the Catalan one, and that it is working "discreetly". This was repeated this Friday by the First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero: "We have not stopped working, but we have noted that every time we put a document on the table, some autonomous community says that it is detrimental to it, and we are permanently making a debate about the grievance out of it," she added. The socialists maintain that they have reached out to the PP to talk about it and consider that it is more viable to reach an agreement between parties on the matter than in the forum of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council.

Romero responds to Ayuso

The Joint Committee on Economic Affairs has also formalised the commitment to forgive 17,104 million of the Generalitat's debt guaranteed by the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy -despite the PP's standstill– and the financing of transfers that came from the Bilateral Commission on Monday has been specified – for example, a transfer of two million annually to the Government for the management of scholarships –. In response to criticism from the PP, Gascón argued that the final objective is to clean up the accounts of the autonomous communities so that they can go to market. "It is very difficult to talk about self-government if the fundamental form of financing of the autonomous communities is having to turn to the State," he said.

The announcement of the reinforcement of the ATC has already received criticism from one of the PP's battering rams against Catalonia on the issue of financing, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The Madrid president has accused the socialists of having started a "drain" of the AEAT and has said that it is "foolish" that according to her the people of Madrid have to pay the debt of other autonomous communities that once turned to the FLA. Romero replied: "It is foolish to lower taxes for the rich and then destroy public universities and healthcare." Romero also asked the PP to stop making politics "against Catalonia."

Other pacts

On the table of the Joint Commission was also the economic landing of the expansion of the Mossos staff to 25,000 agents by 2030, which will be decided in a new meeting of this commission before May 31, once the Security Board specifies the deployment schedule. The State and the Generalitat have also agreed to launch the working group to create a consortium to oversee and accelerate the deployment of state investments in Catalonia to solve the low execution figures, as agreed on Monday by the Bilateral Commission. They should have the conclusions ready before 2026.

There were also two other pending commitments from the State to the Generalitat, which have been given the green light: the transfer to the Government of 25.6 million euros to cover the outstanding debt with Renfe for Cercanías and the extension, until December 20, of the staff situation due to retirements until 2030.