Introduction
Tax revenues totaled 255,463 million euros, which meant an increase of 14.4% compared to the figure recorded in 2021.
The growth was close to what the collection experienced in 2021 (15.1%), but while in that year the comparison was made against a year fully affected by the pandemic, in 2022 it is made against a year in which, Without having completely recovered normality, the income of 2019, the year before the COVID crisis, had already been exceeded by 5%.
The increase in tax bases, and, in particular, consumer spending, labor income (salaries and pensions) and business profits, was the main reason for the growth in income. To this we must add the contribution of the collection from the annual declarations corresponding to the 2021 financial year. The increase also occurred in a year in which the impact of regulatory and management measures (especially those aimed at curbing the rise in the price of electricity) was great: The cost was 7.2 billion. Likewise, in the final stretch of the year the pace of making returns was accelerated. These two elements subtracted around 3.2 points from revenue growth.
Part of the increase in collection had to do with the price increases that began to be observed intensely from the second half of 2021 and continued throughout 2022. But that price increase was not the main reason for the growth in income. It is estimated that less than 5 points of this increase was due to higher inflation than in previous years, despite the fact that the CPI (usual reference, although not necessarily the most appropriate when it comes to collection) grew, on average. of the year, 8.4%. In this sense, it must be taken into account that the CPI only directly affects a part of VAT revenues which, corrected for measures and the advance of refunds, grew more than twice as much as prices. Furthermore, the increases in electricity prices (which explained around one point of the increase in the CPI) were not transferred to the income due to the rate reduction (in the first half to 10% and in the second to 5%). On the other hand, in income related to rents, price increases usually appear with a delay; Thus, the increases in salaries and pensions in 2022 more reflected the price increases of the previous year than those of that year. In other figures in which the tax is levied on physical consumption, such as the Hydrocarbon Tax, the effect of high prices was noted in the opposite direction, reducing income.
Analyzing the details of the four major taxes, income from personal income tax grew by 15.8%, that is, almost half of the growth in total income came from this figure. Behind this increase is the increase in labor income and its effective rate, the good results of the 2021 annual declaration presented at the end of June 2022 and the positive evolution of the profits of personal companies. Income from Corporate Tax grew by 20.8% as a result of the expansive behavior of profits in both 2022 and 2021. The first took shape in a strong increase in installment payments (17.7%) and the second in the considerable growth (41.7%) in the income of the annual declaration, mostly from the 2021 declaration submitted to starting July 2022. In VAT revenues grew by 13.9%. The growth would be 16% if the revenue lost due to the measures on energy consumption is added and 19.4% if the negative impact that the streamlining of refunds that occurred in the last part of the year. The rates are much higher than the increase in prices in the same period, which gives an idea of the intense recovery in consumption. Special Taxes grew by 2.5% overall. It must be remembered that these taxes were, among the large figures, the only ones that in 2021 failed to recover the 2019 level. They did not achieve it in 2022 either, although if the calculation is made without taking into account the Electricity Tax, affected by the measures to reduce the price of electricity, then the income slightly exceeds that of 2019. The origin of such a meager result was the weak performance of the Hydrocarbon Tax.