3.1. Gross tax collection

The gross amount of tax collected comprises the effective incomes obtained in the fiscal year from both the self-assessment tax returns filed by taxpayers and from the settlements carried out by the Tax Agency. It is therefore set on a cash basis.

The total gross collection managed by the Tax Agency in 2022 reached 320,687 million euros, which represented a year-on-year increase of 16.3% (45,085 million more than in 2021).

The increase in gross income in 2022 is fundamentally explained by the growth in consumer spending, salaries and pensions and business profits, with the additional contribution of the positive contributions from the annual personal income tax and corporate tax returns. that correspond to the 2021 financial year.

Part of the high growth in 2022 of the main tax bases (consumer spending, household income and profits) has to do with price increases, but these are not the main cause. It is estimated that just under 5 points of the increase in income is due to price increases above their evolution in recent years, despite the fact that the CPI (usual reference, although not necessarily the most appropriate when it comes to collection) grew, on average for the year, by 8.4%. In this sense, it must be taken into account that the CPI only directly affects a part of VAT revenues which, in gross terms, grew more than twice as much as prices. Furthermore, the increase in the price of electricity was partially offset by the reduction in the rate. In other cases, such as salaries and pensions, the increases are not linked to the prices of the current year, but, for the most part, to those of the previous year. Finally, in other figures that revolve around physical consumption, such as the Hydrocarbon Tax, the effect of prices on income is negative.

Indeed, one of the features that characterized the year 2022 in terms of the economic environment was the high inflation that occurred at the same time as the intense growth in activity was maintained, especially until the last third of the year. Deflated sales, which had already exceeded 2019 levels at the end of 2021, continued to grow at a good pace until reaching their maximums in the central months of the year. Both the daily domestic sales provided by the VAT Immediate Information Supply system and the total sales declared monthly by Large Companies and quarterly by SMEs, followed a growing trend until the second quarter to moderate subsequently, especially in the section end of the year. In current terms, the profile was more pronounced because, in general, prices tended to follow a similar trajectory, with increasing increases in the first semester and gradual deceleration in the second (the CPI and the IPRI -Industrial Price Index- with and without energy they followed this pattern; On the other hand, the underlying CPI, without the most volatile elements, continued to grow until December). Employment also lost momentum as the year progressed, but the slowdown occurred more smoothly.

If the gross income is analyzed by figures, personal income tax collection increased by 14%. The main reasons that explain the growth are the increase in labor income (salaries and pensions) and its effective rate, the good results of the 2021 annual declaration presented at the end of June 2022 and the increase in the benefits of the personal companies. The first of them is what is behind the strong increase (12.5%) in withholdings for income from work and economic activities, the main component of the tax. Both those from the private sector increased (12.9%, especially in SMEs, which still in the first two quarters were compared to periods affected in 2021 by some type of limitation on activity) and those from the public sector (11. 7%, with an increase close to 18% in those derived from pensions). The increase in withholdings was produced by the growth of employment (particularly in the private sector), by the rise in average salaries and pensions (more in the second case than in the first) and by the increase in the effective rate that they carried rigged those rises. Regarding the annual declaration, the positive quota increased significantly (25.4%) due to the growth of income not completely subject to withholding or payment on account (income from business activities and capital gains), in addition to the effect of the regulatory changes (increase in rates on the savings base and modification of the limits on contributions to pension plans) approved in the General State Budget Law for the year 2021. Finally, installment payments, linked, for the most part, to the operating results of the activities of personal companies, grew by 21.7% and were 28.5% above the collection recorded for this concept in 2019.

Gross income from Corporate Tax increased by 21.7%, mainly reflecting the very favorable evolution of profits in both 2022 and 2021. The former were manifested in a strong increase in installment payments (17.3%), also generalized by type of company, although especially high in consolidated groups and, within them, in groups in the banking and energy sectors. The benefits of 2021 can be seen in the considerable growth (41.7%) in annual return income, mostly from the 2021 return filed in July 2022.

In the Non-Resident Income Tax, gross income grew by 36.7%. It must be remembered that this tax had not recovered to pre-pandemic levels due, fundamentally, to the adverse behavior of capital income. In 2022, however, these incomes have recovered much of the dynamism of yesteryear and that, together with the better results of the annual declaration, allowed us to reach a historical record of income, close to 3.6 billion euros.

Gross VAT revenue rose by 20.4% and would have done so at a greater rate if it had not been for the lost revenue related to measures on energy consumption in order to compensate for the increase in these costs. 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.

Income from Special Taxes performed worse and only rose 3.1% compared to those registered in 2021. It must be remembered that these taxes were, among the large figures, the only ones that in 2021 failed to recover the 2019 level. They did not achieve it in 2022 either, although if the calculation is made without counting the Electricity Tax, a marginal collection due to the effect of the measures to moderate the cost of electricity, then the income is 1% higher than what it was three years ago. years. The origin of such a meager result is the weak performance of the Hydrocarbons Tax, whose revenues increased by only 5.2%, which means that the 2022 collection was still below the 2019 figure. The growth at the beginning of the year was high when compared with periods still affected by limitations on mobility, but, as the comparison was made with months of normal activity, the negative impact on the collection of high prices of the gasoline and automotive diesel, to which in recent months was added the moderation of the general economic situation. The situation in the second most important tax among the special ones, the Tobacco Labor Tax, was completely different: In 2022 it grew by 9% after five consecutive years of declines. You have to go back to 2016 to find a collection similar to that of 2022. The prices of the main cigarette brands have been increasing since September 2021 and so have the prices of the rest of the products, and with more intensity, but these increases explain only around 5 points of the growth; the rest can be attributed to an increase in consumption. In taxes on alcohol, revenue grew by 24.9%. The rate is also high due to the comparison with some periods of the previous year with restrictions, but, even so, the final collection is higher than what would result from applying historical average growth to 2019 data. Finally, it is worth noting the resurgence, however small, of the Carbon Tax, virtually disappeared in recent years, but which in 2022 saw its revenue almost double in the context of uncertainty about energy raw materials.

Finally, the gross collection from Chapter III of Fees and other income reached the figure of 2,625 million, which implies a drop of 2.9% compared to 2021. The main cause of the fall was the disappearance of the Canon's income from the use of continental waters for the production of electrical energy (as a result of a ruling by the Supreme Court that led to the return of the proceeds until 2021).

Table 12. Total gross tax collection l New window (Annex).