3.2. Net tax collection
The net tax collection is the gross revenue net of refunds paid, including adjustments with the Basque provinces and Navarre. Moreover, it corresponds, to recording on a cash basis, unlike other items such as recognised rights or taxes for the purpose of National Accounting.
Tax revenues in 2019 reached an amount of 212,808 million euros, collection 2 percent higher than that registered in 2018. The difference between the growth of net and gross income analyzed in the previous section has its explanation in the evolution of the returns made, which, in 2019, exceeded those of the previous year by 4,431 million, reaching an interannual growth of 9 percent. hundred. This strong increase is also conditioned by regulatory and management changes. Without them, returns would have grown by just 2.8 percent.
Likewise, in Table No. 13. Total net tax collection New window and in Chart 14. Evolution of tax collection managed by the Tax Agency New window (Annex), this information is developed.
As already indicated, the year was characterized, among other factors, by the impact of regulatory and management measures that led to a reduction in income of 3,788 million (almost 70 percent due to extraordinary returns regardless of the evolution of bases). and taxes). Without this impact, income would have increased by 3.8 percent, a rate slightly higher than the growth of domestic demand (3.4 percent) and equal to the increase estimated for the tax bases in 2019 which, as has been noted , is also at 3.8 percent.
The figure on which the regulatory and management changes had the greatest effect was personal income tax (-2,748 million), as a result of modifications that came from 2018. The measure that had the most impact in the year was the ruling 1462/2018 of the Supreme Court, of October 3, 2018, which declared income received as maternity and paternity benefits exempt from tax and, therefore, obliged the refund of the tax paid by them in non-prescribed years (2014 to 2018). The refunds corresponding to the years 2014-2017 began to be paid in December 2018 and continued throughout 2019 (-1,046 million differential impact). Likewise, the withholdings that had been made until October 2018 were adjusted in the differential quota of the tax settled in 2019 (-470 million). In addition, the withholdings associated with these benefits were no longer made since November 2018, which also resulted in a loss in this concept (-100 million). The rest of the measures have their origin in the General State Budget Law for the year 2018, which approved the modification of the reduction for work income for low incomes (-648 million), expanded family deductions (-467) and progressively raised the exempt threshold in the taxation of lottery prizes (-17).
In the Corporate Tax, the negative impact amounting to 1,216 million was the result of the existence of extraordinary refunds (not linked to the normal evolution of the tax), derived either from rulings or from different credits for conversion of deferred tax assets ( known as DTA) in credits payable to the Tax Administration.
Regarding VAT, there are two small impacts. The first is a residual effect as a result of the introduction of the SII in 2017, caused by the shift that occurred in 2018 over the months on the entry date of some taxpayers, from the 20th (which was the deadline prior to the SII) until the 30th (in force since the then new system began). The positive impact was estimated at 98 million at the time. The second quantifies the effect of the rate reduction in cinemas, also beginning in July 2018 after the approval of the Budget and with repercussions, for the most part, in 2019 (-37 million).
In Special Taxes, the impact of the measures was positive for a value of 1,025 million. These are two measures: the incorporation of the old regional rate and RDL 15/2018 into the special rate of the Hydrocarbon Tax. Regarding the first, it must be remembered that the regional rate (along with the special state rate) served to integrate, as of 2013, the Tax on Retail Sales of Certain Hydrocarbons into the Tax on Hydrocarbons. With effect from January 1, 2019, a new change occurred that consisted of adding the previous regional rate to the state special rate (since then simply special rate), which increased the State's income (before participation), but without that the joint income of the State and CC.AA be modified. (except for the fact that, upon integration, the rates were harmonized in all the Autonomous Communities. equaling them to the maximum rate and, consequently, total income increased). This is the reason why, although it does not affect the joint income of the AA.PP., this impact has been included during the year. The total result of the measure, also including the effect of the associated returns, was 1,163 million. Regarding RDL 15/2018, it qualified as exempt, since October 2018, the consumption of natural gas, diesel and fuel oil used in the production of electrical energy. It is estimated that the effect of the decree in 2019 reduced income by 138 million. This same rule incorporated other measures intended to influence the formation of electricity prices. One of them was the temporary suppression of the Tax on the Value of Electrical Energy Production, which meant the loss of the collection of this tax corresponding to the last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, both to be paid in 2019. The impact of this elimination of the tax is valued at 762 million.
Finally, we must take into account an extraordinary refund derived from a court ruling in the Inheritance and Donation Tax (-124 million) and the reduction in rates in the Tax on Fluorinated Gases, approved in the 2018 Budget and in force since September of that year. year, with a collection cost in 2019 of 24 million.
The main figures are given in Table 15. Adjustments for impact of regulatory changes New window (Annex ).