4. The tax over the value added

In 2022 VAT revenue grew by 13.9%, reaching 82,595 million.

The predominant note throughout practically the entire year was the notable increase in gross income (20.4%) accompanied by a also considerable increase in returns made (36.7%), in this case both due to the increase in monthly requests and due to the greater pace of completion that occurred in the last part of the year (Graph 4.1).

Graph 4.1. Evolution of the amount of VAT income and its breakdown between gross income and refunds.

The result is conditioned by the reductions in the VAT rate applicable to electricity consumption in contracts with contracted power less than 10 kW and to natural gas consumption. The measures on electricity consumption were already in force in 2021, but not throughout the year or with the same intensity. The growth would be 16% if the revenue lost due to these measures is added and 19.4% if the negative impact that the speeding up of the refunds mentioned above had on income is also corrected. In any case, the rates are much higher than the increase in prices in the same period (between November 2021 and October 2022, the months included in the collection, the general CPI rose, on average, by 8.4%), which indicates that the growth was not only a consequence of the rise in prices, but also of the intense recovery in consumption.

final expenditure subject to VAT closed the year with a growth of 14.2% ( Table 4.1 ). As in other figures, the increase was considerably greater in the first semester (20.5%), favored by the comparison with a period of 2021 partially burdened by some limitations on activity and by an inflationary process that became more acute in that part of the year. This explains why a slowdown in spending was observed in the fourth quarter. For that quarter, an increase in spending of 4.4% is estimated, which contrasts with the rate of the first semester and even with the 13.5% of the third quarter (Graph 4.2). Discounting the increase in prices, the increase in spending would be around 5.5% for the year.

Graph 4.2. Quarterly interannual variation rates of current subject final expenditure, in constant terms and its deflator.

As in the previous year, household consumption spending was the component that grew the most in 2022 (15.9%), after having been the one that suffered the greatest decline due to the pandemic. Despite this, it did not manage to recover the weight it had on the total subject expenditure, remaining slightly below the average observed in the 2016-2019 period. Nor has the agreement that used to be observed between the evolution of the gross income of households, which grew by 8.1%, and their consumption spending, which increased almost double, by 15.9%, been fully recovered. This harmony was broken in 2020, when spending was abruptly affected by confinement and other limitations, without benefiting from other factors that cushioned the fall, as was the case of gross household income, favored by the compensating role they played. income of public origin (salaries, pensions and other benefits, including transfers derived from ERTE). However, if the comparison is made with respect to 2019 levels, this differential narrows considerably: Gross household income grew by 14.3% while spending grew by 16.2% (Graph 4.3). Housing spending grew strongly again (12.5%), while public administration spending, which was the only component that increased in 2020, thanks to the greater disbursement associated with facing the effects of the pandemic, increased by 4.6% in 2022, compared to 7.3%, reached the previous year ( Table 4.1 and Chart 4.4).

Graph 4.3. Annual year-on-year variation in gross household income and household consumption expenditure.

Graph 4.4. Annual inter-annual variation of the final expense subject to VAT, and different contributions of its components: households, public administrations and housing.

It is estimated that the effective rate of VAT remained practically unchanged (-0.3%, Table 4.1 ), despite the regulatory changes that They affected the type: the reduction of the VAT rate on electricity (from 21% to 10% until June 2022 and a new reduction from 10% to 5% from July), the reduction of the VAT rate from 21 to 5% applicable to natural gas, the wood and pellets, the maintenance of the rate reduction on surgical masks and type 0 on essential health materials to combat COVID 19, vaccines and PCR and the rate increase on sugary and sweetened beverages. The impact of these measures, valued at 1,380 million ( Table 1.5 ), favored the decrease in the average rate.

The evolution of the effective rate is also influenced by the type composition of the subject final expenditure ( Table 8.7 ). In the period 2015 to 2019, the weight of general rate expenditure on the total subject final expenditure remained around 57%, increasing to 58.7% in 2020. That year also increased, although to a lesser extent, the weight of super-reduced rate spending, all at the expense of reduced rate spending (associated, among others, with the sectors most affected by confinement measures and other limitations), which was reduced three points. In 2021, this situation was partially reversed, with the additional contribution of the reduction in the electricity rate during half of the year, so that consumption spending at the general rate had a similar weight to that observed before the pandemic. The information corresponding to the 2022 financial year will be available at the end of 2023.

Given the evolution of the subject final expenditure and the effective rate, the VAT accrued in the period increased by 13.8%, which is the same rate expected for the net VAT accrued (which differs from the previous one because it includes the variation in the balance that companies leave to compensate from one year to the next).

Graph 4.5 (70 KB - pdf )

As already noted, gross accrued VAT grew strongly, by 16.9%, an increase that is even more notable if one takes into account that it occurs above a level that it had already far surpassed (by more than 4.9 billion). the pre-pandemic amount ( Table 4.2 ). Furthermore, the inflationary process that began at the end of 2021 and suffered throughout 2022 has been transferred to costs, causing a sharp increase in refund requests. All of this has translated into an increase in the ratios of gross VAT accrued / net VAT accrued and refund requests / net VAT accrued, such that these ratios are the highest observed in the last ten years (Graph 4.6).

Graph 4.6. Ratio of net VAT accrued tax over gross accrued VAT and VAT refund requests.

The slowdown in spending throughout the year has conditioned the evolution of gross VAT accrued, although in a different way depending on the type of taxpayer. Thus, the monthly declarations, which group together Large Companies, groups and other operators covered by the monthly refund regime, together with import VAT, continued to show a growing profile during the first semester, with increases of around 25%. average, the rate of advance reducing slightly in the third quarter to fall sharply in the fourth, to 7.6% (Graph 4.7). For their part, the quarterly statements have shown a slowing profile since the beginning of the year, which has become more evident in the final part of the year.

Graph 4.7. Quarterly interannual variation rates of quarterly and monthly gross VAT.

Gross income increased by 20.4%, three and a half points more than the gross VAT accrued (16.9%, Table 4.2 ). This greater increase has two causes. On the one hand, the mechanics of the tax itself mean that practically all of the income in the first quarter of 2022 corresponds to accruals from the end of 2021, with a much higher growth than the accruals from the last quarter of 2022, whose income is transferred in its most of it to the first quarter of 2023. That is to say, cash income was hardly affected by the period of more intense deceleration that did affect the accrued tax. The second cause of the greater growth in gross income is the 8% increase in collection associated with the requested deferrals, compared to the 10.9% drop recorded in 2021, a consequence of the comparison with the high level reached this year. concept in 2020 due to the payment deferral measures that were taken in the early moments of the pandemic.

Return requests increased by 25.5%, after growing by 14.4% in 2021. Of the 6,951 million largest requests, 6,600 million were due to monthly declarations (the largest increase observed since information was available). These requests, more usually related to exports, although in 2022 also conditioned by price increases, grew by 31.3%, linking two years of strong increases. Annual refund requests, which are more linked to the reduced rates at which smaller companies sell, increased by 5.7%, compared to 17% the previous year.

VAT refunds grew by 36.7% in 2022, with strong advances in both annual refunds, which increased by 18.9%, and monthly refunds, which rose to 46.9% (about 8.8 billion more than those paid in 2021). The growth of regional adjustments was also high (13.6%), although it did not reach the intensity of the previous year. The increase in annual returns is due to the higher amount requested for fiscal year 2021, most of which was paid in 2022, to which was added a high pace of realization, which exceeded the already high rate recorded the previous year (it must be go back to 2008 to find a higher pace of completion). Also in the monthly returns both factors come together: the highest amount requested in fiscal year 2022 and a rebound in the completion rate, which exceeded that achieved in 2021 by almost eleven points and the completion rate observed between 2012 and 2020 by more than four points.