Summary

The year 2020 closed with a collection of 194,051 million euros, 8.8% less than in 2019.

The year was obviously marked by the pandemic, which hampered economic activity and, with it, tax bases and tax revenues. The tax bases of the main taxes decreased by 7.7%. The decline was greater than that recorded in 2008 and later years, although in that case the recession lasted for six years. The decline in the bases was, however, less intense than that recorded in other general activity indicators such as nominal GDP or domestic demand, an indicator usually more closely related to fiscal variables. The main reason for this disparity lies in one of the distinctive features of the year: the compensating role played by public income (wages, pensions and other benefits, including transfers derived from ERTE). This is reflected in the difference between the 13.9% decrease in expenditure-related bases and the 3.3% decrease in income-related bases; In the latter case, if public revenues are subtracted, the drop would be 9.5%. Without the income generated by these rents, tax revenue would have dropped by around 2 more points.

Furthermore, revenues were affected, on the one hand, by the impact of regulatory and management changes and, on the other, by the realization of high returns from previous years s. As for the former, over the course of the year, the most impactful changes came from measures prior to 2020 or outside of COVID. The numerous measures that were implemented in 2020 to alleviate the effects of the health situation did not have such a large impact on the overall result, but, given that in most cases they involved deferrals in payments, they were relevant over the course of the year, reaching significant figures in the months of greatest difficulties for companies. In net terms, the effect of all these measures was positive for revenues. However, the payment of the high refund requests that had been filed in 2019 and that were made in 2020 almost completely offset this.

Both the bases and the rest of the economic activity indicators presented the same profile: First, they suffered a sharp drop as a result of strict confinement, and then began a recovery that was intense at the beginning and that moderated after the summer, coinciding with the worsening of the situation and the limitations on mobility. The revenue trend did not follow the same pattern as the activity for two main reasons: due to the gap that normally occurs between the accrual of the tax and its collection (the clearest example is the second split payment of the Corporate Tax that reflected in October what had happened between April and September) and due to the impact of the approved measures that involved a deferral of income. Only if the income most associated with the current situation and least affected by these measures is considered (such as monthly income from labor withholdings, VAT and Special Taxes on Hydrocarbons and Electricity) is a coherent evolution observed with the rest of the short-term indicators, with a continuous improvement from the minimum reached between May and June, until reaching a rate close to zero in the early stages of 2021.

Except for personal income tax, revenues decreased in all major figures . The positive performance of the IRPF in such an unfavorable context is due, as has been said, to the income from public salaries and pensions, to which was added the comparison with the year 2019 in which most of the refunds linked to maternity benefits were made. The result was a 1.2% increase in tax revenue. In the Corporate Tax revenues fell by 33.2%. A good part of the decline was related to the management of refunds (in the 2018 declaration, submitted in 2019, the amount of the refunds requested was very high). If this negative impact is corrected, together with the positive impact provided by some extraordinary income, the decline would be around 23%, in line with the drop in profits. In VAT the fall was 11.5%, greater in that related to consumer spending. In the Special Taxes revenues were 12.1% lower than those recorded in 2019. Revenue fell across all categories, but with a particular impact on the Hydrocarbon Tax (-15.8%).