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 2020 were 8.8 percent lower than in 2019, reaching an amount of 194,051 million euros. The difference between the growth of net and gross income analyzed in the previous section is explained by the evolution of the returns made, which, in 2020, exceeded those of the previous year by 234 million, reaching an interannual growth of 0. 4 percent.

Likewise, in Table No. 13. Total net tax collection New window and in Chart No. 14. Evolution of tax collection managed by the Tax Agency to New window (Annex), this information is developed.

The pandemic, as well as the consequent restriction measures taken to limit its effects, deteriorated economic activity and, with it, tax revenues. These, in addition, were affected, positively, by the impact of regulatory and management changes and, negatively, by the payment of the high refund requests that had been submitted in 2019. Income in homogeneous terms, which corrects most of the effect of these two factors, fell by 7.9 percent, a figure similar to that estimated for the tax bases of the main taxes.

Table 15. Adjustments due to the impact of regulatory changes New window (Annex) presents, in detail, the measures that took effect during the year and their impact on the different taxes. The net impact of the regulatory and management changes that have had some relevant impact on revenues in 2020 is estimated at 2,940 million.

An aspect to highlight when analyzing the regulatory and management measures is the separation into two clearly differentiated blocks. On the one hand, there are the measures unrelated to COVID, which were also mostly prior to its appearance. The impact of this group of measures is positive, worth almost 4 billion. On the other hand, there are the different types of measures that have been taken since mid-March, most of them with the aim of limiting the effects of the pandemic on taxpayers' obligations. Together these measures are valued at just over 1,000 million for the total of the year, although one of the characteristics of these measures was their unequal distribution over the months, leading to a significant increase in the first months of their entry into force. reduction in collection of more than 4,300 million, cushioning in the subsequent months.

Regarding the measures unrelated to COVID, a good part are not impacts from 2020, but from 2019, but they are included by affecting the variation rate between both years. This situation includes the refunds for maternity benefits in personal income tax, those derived from rulings in the Corporate Tax and the Inheritance and Donation Tax, and the DTA credits also in Companies. All of them were carried out in an extraordinary way in 2019, negatively altering the comparison with the previous year and the opposite in 2020. Other impacts, although they occurred in 2020, were also a consequence of previous decisions. This is the case of the effect in 2019 on the annual personal income tax payment of the settlement of the tax associated with maternity benefits paid in 2018 (before the ruling) and the expansion of family deductions (started in 2018, but completed in 2019 return filed in 2020); from the increase in income due to the recovery of the Tax on the Value of Electrical Energy Production; the increase in the collection of the Hydrocarbon Tax due to the transfer to 2020 of part of the income derived from the change in the regional rate that took place in 2019; and the losses due to the Lottery Tax when the exemption threshold is raised. In addition, extraordinary income and refunds were recorded in the Corporate Tax due to rulings issued in 2020; In the former, the amount was 1,081 million and in the latter, 406 million (the interest generated by the declaration of unconstitutionality of RDL 2/2016, which modified the way in which installment payments were calculated).

For their part, the measures approved to combat the consequences of COVID can be grouped into three types:

Measures intended to facilitate compliance with tax obligations.

These measures would include:
In all three cases it is a deferral of payments by taxpayers. Therefore, the initial impact that these measures had was diluted as the months went by. The first measure (delay in submitting self-assessments) is, in this sense, an extreme case: The negative impact occurred in April and was fully recovered in May. In the other two (postponements and suspension) the initial impact (2,668 million and 1,629, respectively) was reduced as the deferred amounts were entered, especially in the months of October and November, coinciding with the end of the six-month period granted. . Not all amounts were recovered during the year (as can be seen in the Table), so the process will continue in the first months of 2021.

It must be clarified, on the other hand, that the figure of deferrals mentioned above (2,668 million) does not strictly correspond to those requested under RDL 7, 11 and 15 (worth 2,511 million) as other deferrals are also included that, without adjusting to the conditions of those RDL, they were classified as extraordinary in nature with respect to the normal evolution of the series. For practical purposes, the difference between considering one figure or another is not very important, especially taking into account that the rate of recovery of the two types of deferrals was similar (by the end of the year, approximately 92 percent of the amounts involved in postponements granted).
Measures with the aim of reducing fractional payments by small businesses.

In two ways:
- The change in the form of settlement of installment payments approved in RDL 15/2020 that made it possible, on the one hand, to apply the direct estimate in personal income tax in 2020 without preventing the option of returning to the objective estimate in 2021, and, on the other hand, another, in the Corporate Tax, to pay taxes according to the profits actually obtained instead of the last annual installment presented. In the latter case, in the first payment taxpayers with a transaction volume of less than 600 thousand euros were eligible, and from the second payment also those with a transaction volume of less than 6 million.
- The elimination in the objective estimate of the calculation as days of carrying out the activity the calendar days in which the state of alarm had been declared (RDL15/2020).
Measures related to VAT.

In three aspects:
- Possibility of change in the form of settlement and elimination of days in a state of alarm for taxpayers covered by the Simplified Regime (RDL 15/2020), similar to taxpayers in objective estimation of personal income tax.
- Application of zero rate on intra-community deliveries, imports and acquisitions of goods necessary to combat the effects of COVID whose recipients are public entities, clinics and hospital centers or private entities of a social nature (RDL 15/2020); initially from April 22 to July 31, although it was later extended.
- Rate reduction to 4 percent for digital books, newspapers and magazines (RDL 15/2020).
In 2020, other VAT rate reductions were approved (to 4 percent for masks when the recipient is different from those who benefit from 0 percent), but due to their approval date (RDL 34/2020, of December 17 November) its effects will only begin to be noticed in 2021 income.