EvalPub researcher Amadeo Fuenmayor discusses the tax proposals that the four main political parties (PP, PSOE, Sumar and Vox) presented in their programmes for the last legislative elections, which took place in July.
The author’s objective is, as far as possible, to evaluate the results of these proposals ex ante. This evaluation will be carried out using EUROMOD online, which makes it possible to simulate specific policies with EU-SILC data for Spain for 2022.
With regard to personal income tax, Vox and Sumar were the parties that most specified their proposals in their respective programmes. One of Vox’s programmatic proposals for personal income tax, based on a linear tax, would be the establishment of a tax rate of 15% for taxable income below €70,000, and 25% above this amount. The result after evaluating this measure is that most households would pay more personal income tax, regardless of their income level. Tax rates would increase for the lowest incomes and the least affected in percentage terms would be the richest households. Personal income tax revenue would increase by 6.7%.
On the other hand, the proposals of Sumar, PSOE and PP are analysed. However, as they are not very precise, it is not possible to evaluate them. As the author explains, such imprecision prevents voters from voting “with their heads”, as they do not have enough information about the real impact of the proposals.
With regard to wealth taxation (ISD and IP), there are large differences between the parties’ proposals, the result of ideological disparities between them. However, in general, there is a call for greater homogenisation of these taxes between autonomous regions, either by maintaining them or by abolishing them. The great current diversity between regional ISD and IP regulations leads to voting “with one’s feet”, i.e. taxpayers choose their residence according to the combination of taxes and benefits that best suits their preferences.