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, amounting to 194,051 million euros. The difference between the growth in net and gross income analysed in the previous section can be explained by the evolution of the returns made, which in 2020 exceeded those of the previous year by 234 million, achieving a year-on-year growth of 0.4 percent.

Also, 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 restrictive measures taken to limit its effects, deteriorated economic activity and, with it, tax revenues. These were also positively affected by the impact of regulatory and management changes and negatively affected by the high number of refund requests submitted in 2019. Homogeneous revenues, which correct 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 No. 15. Adjustments for 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 a relevant impact on income in 2020 is estimated at 2,940 million.

One aspect to highlight when analysing the regulatory and management measures is the separation into two clearly differentiated blocks. On the one hand, there are measures unrelated to COVID, most of which were also in place prior to the outbreak. The impact of this group of measures is positive, amounting to almost €4 billion. On the other hand, there are the various measures that have been taken since mid-March, most of them with the aim of limiting the effects of the pandemic on taxpayers' obligations. Altogether, these measures are valued at just over 1,000 million for the whole year, although one of the characteristics of these measures was their uneven distribution over the months, resulting in a reduction in revenue of more than 4,300 million in the first months of their entry into force, which was cushioned in the following months.

As regards measures unrelated to COVID, a large part of them are not impacts specific to 2020, but to 2019, but they are included because they affect the rate of change between the two years. This situation applies to refunds for maternity benefits in personal income tax, those arising from rulings in corporate tax and inheritance and gift tax, and payments for DTAs also in corporate tax. All of them were carried out in an extraordinary manner in 2019, negatively altering the comparison with the previous year and vice versa 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 rate of the settlement of the tax associated with maternity benefits paid in 2018 (before the ruling) and the extension of family deductions (started in 2018, but completed in the 2019 declaration submitted in 2020); from the increase in revenue from the recovery of the Tax on the Value of Electric 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 from the Lottery Tax when the exemption threshold was raised. In addition, extraordinary income and refunds were recorded in Corporate Tax due to judgments issued in 2020; In the first case the amount was 1,081 million and in the second case 406 million (the interest generated by the declaration of unconstitutionality of RDL 2/2016 which modified the way of calculating the fractional payments).

The measures approved to combat the consequences of COVID can be grouped into three types:

Measures aimed at facilitating compliance with tax obligations.

These measures would include:
In all three cases, payments are deferred by taxpayers. The initial impact of these measures therefore faded over the months. The first measure (delay in filing 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 (deferrals and suspension) the initial impact (2,668 million and 1,629, respectively) was reduced as the deferred amounts were paid, especially in the months of October and November, coinciding with the end of the six-month period granted. Not all the amounts were recovered during the year (as can be seen in the Table), so the process will continue into the first months of 2021.

It should be clarified, on the other hand, that the figure for deferrals mentioned above (2,668 million) does not strictly correspond to those requested under RDLs 7, 11 and 15 (worth 2,511 million) as it also includes other deferrals which, without complying with the conditions of these RDLs, were classified as extraordinary in nature with respect to the normal evolution of the series. For practical purposes, the difference between considering one or the other figure is not very important, especially considering that the recovery rate of the two types of deferrals was similar (up to the end of the year, approximately 92 percent of the amounts involved in the deferrals granted had been recovered).
Measures aimed at reducing split payments by small businesses.

In two ways:
- The change in the method of settling fractional payments approved in RDL 15/2020 made it possible, on the one hand, to apply direct estimation in personal income tax in 2020 without preventing the option of returning to objective estimation in 2021, and, on the other, to tax corporate tax according to the profits actually obtained instead of according to the last annual payment submitted. In the latter case, taxpayers with a trading volume of less than 600 thousand euros were eligible for the first payment, and from the second payment onwards, those with a trading volume of less than 6 million were also eligible.
- The elimination of the calendar days in which the state of alarm had been declared from the objective estimate of the calculation as days of exercise of the activity (RDL15/2020).
Measures related to VAT.

In three aspects:
- Possibility of changing the method of settlement and eliminating the days in a state of alarm for taxpayers under the Simplified Regime (RDL 15/2020), similar to taxpayers in the objective estimation of personal income tax.
- Application of the zero rate on deliveries, imports and intra-community acquisitions of goods necessary to combat the effects of COVID whose recipients are public entities, clinics and hospitals or private entities of a social nature (RDL 15/2020); Initially from April 22 to July 31, although it was later extended.
- Tax 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.