In the midst of the controversy over the change in the regional financing model that will be caused by the “singular financing” that PSOE and ERC have agreed to carry out in Catalonia so that they manage 100% of their taxes, the regional accounts are not quite adding up. Right now, the Community of Madrid would be the region that is most supportive of the rest of the territories and the one that contributes the most to the regional financing system (SFA), 25% of its tax revenue, three times that of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, the only other two regions that contribute more than they receive, 7% of their taxes to the common fund. The remaining twelve receive transfers that far exceed their homogeneous tax revenue, and that in the case of Extremadura and the Canary Islands exceeds 95% and 100% respectively of the collection of transferred taxes, as confirmed by Fedea.
A situation that is confirmed if we look at the data published by the Tax Agency (AEAT) itself, since only three autonomous communities among the 15 under the common regime could cover their annual accounts with the state-wide taxes they generate. Madrid collects 44% of the total and would finance up to four times its own budget. The other two self-sufficient regions are Catalonia and Cantabria, which at least generate more than they need.
The remaining 12 communities would spend 72.316 billion more than they are able to collect from their state tax revenues. Thus, Andalusia spent 22.157 billion; 9.389 billion in the Valencian Community; 7.251 in Castilla-La Mancha, 6.868 in Castilla y León; or 5.211 in Extremadura. The difference reached 4.080 billion in Murcia, 3.900 in Galicia, 2.786 in Asturias, 2.240 in Aragon, 756 in La Rioja and 399 in the Balearic Islands.
This means that Madrid, with its 92.433 billion euros collected above its annual budget, finances all the extra spending of the 12 communities that budget above what their citizens and companies generate in taxes, and there would still be more than 20 billion left over. If the amount collected by the Community of Madrid is added to that of Catalonia and Cantabria, the figure of state taxes collected above their budgets would exceed 99 billion –92.433 from Madrid residents, 6.387 from Catalonia and 243 million from Asturias–.
Citizens and companies with tax domicile in the Community of Madrid generated almost 120,576 million euros in state taxes in 2023, which represented 44.34% of the 271,935 million collected in the country as a whole. According to the net income figures – including the discount on refunds – Madrid generated 38.73% of the income tax collection (46,581 million euros), 48.50% of VAT (40,694 million), 84.35% of Special Taxes (17,507 million) and 32.27% of Corporate Tax (11,313 million). Therefore, Madrid would be up to 2.3 times above the collection of Catalonia, 53,543 million, and six times more than the 19,570 million collected in the Valencian Community and the 18,919 of Andalusia (6.4 times). The remaining communities of the common regime generate together a little less than 18.5% of all taxes at the state level. Galicia accounts for 10,253 million (3.77% of the total); Balearic Islands, 6,733 (2.48%); Castile and Leon, 5,884 (2.16%); Aragon, 5,559 (2.04%); Castile-La Mancha 4,268 (1.57%); Canary Islands, 3,786 (1.39%); Cantabria, 3,750 (1.38%); Murcia, 3,690 (1.36%); Asturias, 3,116 (1.15%); Extremadura, 1,950 (0.72%) and La Rioja, 1,142 (0.42%).
If the collection is measured in territorial terms with respect to the income section of the 2023 regional budgets, it can be seen that while Madrid, Catalonia and Cantabria could finance their own accounts only with the state taxes collected in their territory, the Balearic Islands would be close to being able to do so, with 94.40% of the income recorded in their accounts. In Galicia, barely 72.44% would be covered; in Aragon, 71.27%; in the Valencian Community, 67.58%; 60.16% in La Rioja and 52.80% in Asturias, while it is close to half of the regional budget in Murcia (47.49%), Castilla y León (46.14%) and Andalusia (46.06%), and is far behind in Castilla-La Mancha (37.05%), the Canary Islands (34.24%) and Extremadura (27.24%). In the case of the community headed by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the amount contributed in state-level taxes last year exceeded the figure for income from the Community budget by 328.45%.
If Catalonia finally leaves the regional financing system for its own “fiscal agreement”, the situation would become even worse. Fedea points out that giving Catalonia 100% of taxes “would prevent the implementation of uniform social policies throughout the country and would change the nature of the State.” In addition, this agreement would also include the forgiveness of the 15 billion euros of debt that the Generalitat has with the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA), around 20% of the total debt of the community, which would force the Government to take similar measures with the rest of the regions. The Bank of Spain and Airef warn that fiscal, social and territorial cohesion would be broken.