Introduction

In 2018, tax revenues reached 208,685 million euros, which represented a growth of 7.6% . This increase is affected by the change that occurred in mid-2017 in the VAT filing dates of taxpayers under the Immediate Information Supply (SII) system and which shifted income from 2017 to 2018. If this shift is corrected, revenue would have grown by 5.4% .

The main reasons for the revenue growth were twofold: the increase in tax bases and the positive results of the annual income tax return.

The tax bases of the main taxes grew by 6.1% in 2018, almost one point above the growth recorded the previous year, and exceeding the level reached in 2007 for the first time. Although the trend in real activity was downward throughout the year (as evidenced by, among other indicators, real GDP, membership, deflated total sales of large companies and the number of wage earners in them), in nominal terms the profile was different, especially with regard to tax bases. Thus, in the second half of the year, there was, on the one hand, an additional growth in income thanks to the increases in wages and public pensions approved together with the 2018 Budget in July and the improvement in profits, and, on the other, a boost in the bases linked to expenditure as a consequence of price increases, especially in energy products.

The result of the evolution of the bases was an increase in income from labor withholdings, from fractional payments in Corporate Tax and from VAT, which explain, between the three, 90% of the growth registered in 2018.

The rest of the growth was basically due to the good results that occurred in the annual income tax return when settling the 2017 tax (and, therefore, linked to income generated in that year) and which translated into a strong increase in income and the maintenance of the amount of refunds made.