Junts and PP declare war on the "fiscal hell" of Salvador Illa and Pedro Sánchez

Barcelona"Fiscal hell" is a concept that has been gaining ground in the right wing of parliaments. It was popularized by the president of Foment del Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, and has now been adopted as their own by everyone from the PP to Junts, including the far-right Vox and Alianza Catalana. It doesn't take much imagination to conclude that this is a frontal criticism of the current tax model in both Catalonia and the State. Now it's the turn of Carles Puigdemont's party, which in this week's plenary session in the Parlament has set itself the goal of attacking the taxation maintained by the Generalitat with a double initiative: deflating personal income tax (IRPF) (removing inflation from the Government's revenue) and subsidizing the inheritance and gift tax. Junts knows it will lose the vote (it will probably only have the PP, Vox, and Alianza on its side), but it intends for it to be the start of a cultural battle against the left.

The national spokesperson, Josep Rius, was already talking on Monday about this "fiscal hell," which Junts also did not reverse during its years in the Government. The Junts members also take advantage of the fact that in Andalusia, the president of the Junta, Juanma Moreno, has announced a battery of tax cuts to contrast the models, but also to denounce that the Andalusians are doing so while Catalonia maintains a fiscal deficit of

21 billion euros annually, which reduces its room for maneuver.

Behind the slogan lower taxes and more justice

lies a cultural war, which has the inheritance tax as one of the main battlegrounds, called "the death tax" by some on the right. A week ago, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, resorted precisely to this definition regarding inheritance and used "fiscal hell" to contrast his model with that of Pedro Sánchez. In line with what Mariano Rajoy once promised — although he would later end up raising taxes to deal with the economic crisis — Feijóo says he will lower personal income tax, housing taxes, renounce inheritance tax, and approve a battery of tax cuts if he governs.

The Junts members have also raised in Congress the suppression of the wealth tax, which together with the inheritance tax and the regional tranches of personal income tax, are those that allow the most regulatory capacity to the autonomies. Where the PP governs, in fact, they are practically suppressed, despite the frontal opposition of the left, which claim that they are progressive taxes that tax wealth and allow for a fairer redistribution of resources. By renouncing this collection, argue the Catalan and Spanish executives, public services should be cut.

Within Junts, the party's left-wing sector has also been reluctant to suppress taxes, even though it has blessed the proposal that will be put to a vote this Wednesday. In the tax field, however, it is the vice-president of the party and a key person in the liberal sector, Antoni Castellà, who pilots the issues in the Catalan chamber. He is one of those responsible for the party having marked an increasingly clear ideological profile, with a convergent attitude.

The tax reduction

What Junts proposes with the deflation of personal income tax (IRPF) is the adjustment of brackets and deductions to adapt tax collection to inflation and ensure that Catalans do not pay more taxes in relative terms. This means moving all brackets, something the Government has ruled out. The PP has also joined the tax war this week, intensifying its campaign for income tax declaration, "You pay more and receive less", criticizing the 15 regional taxes that Catalonia has and denouncing that Catalans are the ones who pay the most in the brackets up to 30,000 euros of annual income.

Vox has stated that it supports the tax reduction proposed by Junts, although it considers it "insufficient", according to spokesperson Joan Garriga. The Spanish far-right wants there to be only two regional IRPF brackets, one at 15% for incomes up to 70,000 euros and another at 25% for higher incomes – currently there are eight progressive brackets.

, criticizing the 15 own taxes that Catalonia has and denouncing that Catalans are the ones who pay the most in the brackets up to 30,000 euros annual income.

collected 1,162 million euros last year and in wealth tax they collected 835 million.