3.2.3. Evolution of income for Special Taxes

Income from Excise Taxes increased by 5% in 2021 and totaled 19,729 million euros. The Special Taxes were the ones that had the worst behavior among the great figures. Its growth in 2021 did not manage to reverse the sharp drop in 2020 and at the end of the year the collection was still 7.7% below that registered in 2019. Within a general context of recovery, each of the taxes was affected by different factors, which made their evolution very uneven.

In the Hydrocarbon Tax, revenue grew, but less than what it had fallen in 2020 (+11.3 compared to -15.8%). Its trajectory over the months was conditioned by the comparison with the different situations that had been experienced in 2020: strict confinement, recovery and new limitations on mobility, which, in the latter case, were carried over to the first months of 2021 with the added effect of storm Filomena. Furthermore, growth was limited by the negative impact of the sharp rise in fuel prices. In the main products, those most linked to consumption (gasoline and subsidized diesel) showed better performance than those most linked to activity such as automotive diesel (with consumption still 8.5% lower than in 2019).

The decrease in income from the Tobacco Tax is not new (it is the fifth consecutive year in which losses have occurred). The 2.1% drop in 2021 is lower than last year (-3.1%), but more intense than those observed in previous years. The pattern is the same: Cigarette consumption decreases (-0.3%) and its average price due to substitution with cheaper varieties (-0.8%, increases starting in September only slightly slowed the decline) and consumption and the price of cigarettes increases. the other tasks (2.3% and 0.5%, respectively).

In the Electricity Tax, the progressive recovery that was observed in income was frustrated by the reduction in the rate (from 5.11 to 0.5%) since mid-September. Until August, income had increased by 2.3% compared to 2020; At the end of the year the drop was 12.2%. As has been seen, the reduction in the rate meant the loss of 336 million that would have allowed us to achieve a collection similar to that of 2019, although on those dates the prices were lower than those in force in 2021.

Finally, in taxes on alcohol, although at the beginning of the year the bad data of 2020 continued (the first income of 2021 corresponds to the accruals of the last months of 2020 affected by the restrictions), subsequently the trend was progressive recovery (until March, collection fell by almost 20% and since April it grew by almost 21%). For the year as a whole, the result was an increase of 7%, but income was very far from the 2019 record (-12.9%).