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Fiscal year 2018

Summary

In 2018, tax revenues reached 208,685 million euros, which represented a growth of 7.6%.

The increase compared to 2017 is affected by the change in the VAT submission dates of taxpayers covered by the Immediate Information Supply (SII) system, a change that occurred as of July 2017 and which meant a shift in income of 2017 to 2018. If this element is corrected, revenues would have grown by 5.4% .

The year 2018 was a year of slowdown in real activity. Real GDP, affiliation or deflated total sales and the number of wage earners from Large Companies, among other indicators, grew less than in 2017. However, in nominal terms and particularly in the aggregates most related to the evolution of income, such as internal demand and compensation of employees, the situation was somewhat different: The first slowed down less than real GDP and the second grew more than in 2017.

In this environment the aggregate tax base of the main taxes grew by 6.1% in 2018, growth almost one point higher than in 2017, continuing the growing trend that has characterized the evolution of these bases in the last five years and thus exceeding the maximum that had been reached in 2007. The bases linked to income increased above what they did in 2017, with more intense growth in the second half of 2018, after the increases in salaries and public pensions approved in the Budgets and due to the improvement in the benefits of the societies. On the other hand, from the perspective of spending, the bases showed a high pace, but slightly lower than the previous year, in line with the profile of domestic demand.

The effective rate on income and spending remained practically stable in 2018 (it grew by 0.1%), so the taxes accrued In the four main tax figures they increased at the same rate as the bases, 6.1%. Adding the rest of the figures, accrued taxes grew by 5.7%. In both cases, the growth is very similar to that achieved in 2017 and similar to what tax revenues recorded once the impact of the SII was eliminated.

As a consequence of all of the above, the growth of tax revenues was concentrated in direct taxes. Collection from Personal Income Tax increased by 7.6%, mainly the result of the increase in labor withholdings and gross income from the annual declaration. Income from Corporate Tax grew by 7.3%. Fractional payments, the main component of the tax, rose 11.7% due to the good performance of profits, although tax growth was slowed by the increase in refunds. In indirect taxes, growth, without SII, was more moderate. Income from VAT (corrected for SII) grew by 3.7%, an increase lower than the estimate for the final expense subject to the tax due to the high volume of refunds made and the decrease in income from previous periods. Revenue from Excise Taxes increased by 1.1%. The net income from the Hydrocarbon Tax grew above its consumption, when compared to a 2017 level affected by negative regional adjustments. As usual, the Tobacco Tax had an irregular trajectory throughout the year, closing with a drop in revenue of 1.4%. In the Electricity Tax, revenue increased by 3.5%, mostly due to the atypical behavior of consumption in 2017. In the Coal Tax, revenue fell 13.1% compared to 2017, the year in which, due to the drought, intensive use was recorded as a substitute in the generation of electrical energy. In taxes related to alcohol, revenues decreased slightly. In the rest of the figures , the Non-Resident Income Tax stood out, whose income increased by 17.2%. On the contrary, in Chapter III (fees and other income) collection in 2018 was 0.3% lower than in 2017, mainly due to the drop in revenue from the Canon for the use of water. continental for the production of electrical energy, also affected by the drought of 2017 (the year was settled in 2018).