Within the set of information that forms tax statistics covering the most varied aspects, personal businesses (the self-employed) can be analyzed in great detail through the statistics of Returns on economic activities . This publication takes advantage of the information that these entrepreneurs provide in their annual Personal Income Tax returns. The economic and tax information contained in the declaration, together with its personal characteristics, allows us to provide a complete vision of this type of company. The latest information published corresponds to fiscal year 2021 (the next publication is scheduled for November of this year 2024).

As in all cases in which the group analyzed is very broad (in 2021 the number of personal companies was estimated at 3.15 million), the first thing to take into account is its diversity, which manifests itself in very different ways. . Graphs 1 and 2 show the different groups that are included in this group, either by the type of activity (Graph 1), or by the way in which they determine their income in the personal income tax return (Graph 2).

Although perhaps where the disparity is most evident is in the unequal amount of returns from the various activities. Figure 3 illustrates this point by comparing some of the activities in direct estimation. As you can see, when we talk about personal companies we are talking at the same time about registrars or notaries with incomes exceeding 300,000 euros and professionals dedicated to cleaning or dancing services who barely exceed 6,000 euros per year.

In statistics of tax origin, it must always be taken into account that the average amounts, such as the one shown in the previous graph, may have the problem of including within the population people who have only partial dedication to the activity; In the previous case, taxpayers whose relationship with business or professional activities is marginal. This fact causes the averages to be low compared to what would be expected a priori. This circumstance is seen very well when the distribution of entrepreneurs by income brackets is analyzed, as is done in Graph 4, which shows said distribution in three different years to see its shape, its evolution, its stability over time. and its main measures (median, mean, decile 9).

As in other well-known cases (such as salary distribution from tax sources ), the distribution has a very large lower section, which indicates the existence of people for whom business returns They are not the main source of income. In this sense, we must not forget that, as can be seen in the statistics, around 30% of the total income that these individual entrepreneurs have comes from salaries. If the distribution is restricted to only those taxpayers whose business income is more than half of their total income, the picture changes substantially (Chart 5).

The situational monitoring of the main group of these companies, those that declare according to direct estimation, can be done quarterly with the information provided by the Business Margins Observatory (discussed in several previous newsletter entries) .

Finally, if what you want is to put these companies in context by comparing them with similar companies with a corporate form, you can go to the Statistics of corporate and non-corporate SMEs which analyzes jointly, from the year 2017, non-corporate SMEs in direct estimation and small corporate companies. An example of the results that can be consulted in this publication are those shown in Graph 6.