Summary

In 2019, tax revenues rose to 212.808 billion euros, 2% more than in 2018.

Among other factors, the impact of regulatory and management measures stood out during the year, which led to a reduction in income of nearly 3.8 billion (almost 70% due to extraordinary returns, regardless of the evolution of bases and taxes). Without this impact, revenues would have increased by 3.8% .

The economic situation in 2019 was characterized by a progressive slowdown in activity. Real indicators (GDP, employment) moderated their year-on-year growth as the year progressed, as did indicators obtained from fiscal information (total deflated sales and number of wage earners in large companies and corporate SMEs); In this case, it was also observed that the slowdown slowed in the central months of the year and became more pronounced at the end. In nominal terms, although GDP maintained stable growth throughout the year, domestic demand, which is the macroeconomic aggregate most closely related to income, also showed a downward trend, similar to the trend of sales, with high growth in the first few months of the year, more moderate growth in the central half of the year and a new slowdown in the final quarter. Salaried employee compensation was the only variable that showed a more expansive performance than in previous years thanks to salary increases.

The tax bases of the main taxes in 2019 reflected the slowdown in spending and the dynamism of income from salaries and pensions. Growth for the year as a whole was 4%, almost two points less than in 2018. In terms of expenditure, the slowdown was more intense than that experienced by domestic demand due to the greater influence that variations in energy prices have on the bases, with growth much lower in 2019 than that recorded in 2018. In terms of income, the dynamism of household-related income was partially offset by the slight growth in the corporate tax base.

In addition to the evolution of economic activity and the foundations, as has been said, there was a significant impact of the regulatory and management measures in force in 2019. Three of them are worth highlighting: the consideration of maternity benefits as exempt income, which meant more than 1.6 billion in lower income both due to the refunds for the period 2014-2017 and due to the adjustments to withholdings in 2019 and in the annual declaration of 2018; the measures that came into force after the approval of the 2018 Budget, which involved the reduction of withholdings for the lowest incomes (pensioners and SME workers, mainly) and the expansion of family deductions (over 1.1 billion in total); and the existence of extraordinary refunds in Corporate Tax (derived from court rulings and payments by DTAs) amounting to more than 1.2 billion.

Given the evolution of economic activity and the foundations, together with the negative impacts of regulatory and management changes, tax revenues grew by 2%. Income revenue increased by 4.9 . This figure is the most affected by regulatory and management changes in 2019. Correcting for this loss of revenue, growth would have been 8.2%. Virtually all of the growth is explained by the increase in withholdings and the results of the annual declaration. In Corporate Tax revenues decreased by 4.4% (+0.4% if extraordinary refunds are eliminated). Along with these refunds, the most notable fact was the decrease in split payments, partly due to the sharp increase that occurred in 2018 and which was concentrated in a small group of large companies. The decline was offset by the growth in annual tax returns and by the lower amount of refunds made. Income from VAT grew by 1.9%, growth that moderated throughout the year, in line with the evolution of sales and inflation. Revenue from Special Taxes grew by 4.1%, but only due to the inclusion of the old regional rate in the special rate of the Hydrocarbon Tax. Without this contribution, revenues would have decreased.