Spain May Defer at Least EU200 Million of Tax Revenue
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Elliot Gotkine reports on the role of regional lawmakers in the approval Spain's budget announcement next month. Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is lagging in opinion polls as he cuts public-sector wages by 5 percent to reduce the euro-region’s third-largest budget gap and tries to overhaul the labor market. The country’s two biggest unions have called a general strike for Sept. 29. (Source: Bloomberg)
The Spanish government may see “a few hundred million euros” in tax revenue delayed after a court ruled that its system of auditing sales tax was illegal, a spokesman for the tax agency said.
Denying a claim that the figure was more than 5 billion euros ($6.4 billion), the Agencia Tributaria said about 19,000 taxpayers who challenged sales tax bills from 2006 to 2008 will win their appeals because of a flaw in its collection procedure, the spokesman said. The tax agency, however, will resubmit those tax bills affected to eventually collect the money, he said.
“This process will not generate any economic loss to the public accounts,” the Finance Ministry said today in a statement that contradicted claims earlier today by the union of tax officials known as Gestha.
That group said the court ruling could affect 480,000 cases representing a combined 5.1 billion euros in revenue. The finance ministry said in its statement that Gestha’s interpretation was “alarmist” and lamentable given that it may lead to the impression that Spain would lose billion of euros in revenue “at an especially delicate moment in the economic situation and deficit in public accounts.”
To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net Charles Penty at cpenty@bloomberg.net
Rate this Page