Last week there was, this is between adding and the PSOE, for the reduction of the working day, with a quite hard tone that surprised the ministers, but none of that moved to the press conference. This week has been exactly the other way around: the Council of Ministers was proceeding, without internal discussions, but the press conference became an unprecedented public debate between the two partners of the coalition on account of one of the most sensitive issues: the taxes. Not even in the toughest moments between Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias there was a crossing of positions in the press conference so clear and evident that at times it has been more similar to a parliamentary debate than to a joint appearance of the Executive.
Pilar Alegría and Yolanda Díaz struggled to teach each one their own graphics, contradicting themselves, asking both to “do pedagogy” but in the opposite direction: the vice president, the citizens who charge the SMI will pay IRPF – although according to their calculations they will only do a 20 % of them – and the spokesman to defend, visibly uncomfortable, that decision of María Jesús Montero.
The problem was especially from time to time. The decision, which according to the body minister yesterday was not taken, was announced by the Treasury just before the press conference, which caused the announcement to be totally overshadow. Joy desperate at times: “The increase in the minimum wage is good news, it is what we have decided today.” But the discomfort in the Moncloa with the Treasury is very important, due to the announcement before the wheel and thus putting the focus on the discrepancy within the coalition. Díaz did not cut at any time and made it clear that adding does not agree with Montero, although he respects his competitions.
The vice president also said that she – and many other members of the Government too – learned of the press of the Treasury decision. Montero and Díaz were together a good part of the morning, at an interministerial meeting on the Dana de Valencia and then in the Council of Ministers. The First Vice President and Minister of Finance did not notify her colleague that they were going to announce the decision shortly after. “There was neither deliberation nor communication to any of the parties that we make up adding, I have learned for you. We are going to say it clearly, a hairdresser taxes 17% and a large corporation at 3.8%. The Spaniards deserve to know what the positions are. We want whoever has more, contribute more, we want those who charge the SMI to be exempt as they have been so far, ”said Diaz.
Diaz’s gestures and joy at the press conference were very evident. The spokeswoman went to clarify, to get graphics and try to explain the decision of the Treasury to try to recover the focus on the good news of the SMI’s rise. Both looked at each other, headed when the other spoke, spoke with gestures and with a clear discomfort. The tension is very evident, and this time no one hidden. “Fiscal justice begins above. We have just made a fiscal gift to the rentiers, who will break up 100% of the IRPF, ”Díaz cried. And joy replied, sitting next to him: “That part that is said to be hacienda is not for her, will consolidate public services, you have to do tax pedagogy.”
The argument of adding is that if taxes are lowered to people who have a house in property and rent it, you cannot give the political signal of including in the personal income tax right now to those who charge the SMI, who have always been exempt. Meanwhile, the Treasury says that technically this is what experts asked for, that there was last year a significant decrease in low income, and that 80% of SMI’s perceptors will be out for the different exemptions per child and others. But the issue is no longer so technical and political, of message, and it seemed evident, so it said the own joy, that the way of communicating it by the Treasury had ruined good news as the ascent of the SMI.
Díaz even read the Constitution to indirectly accuse the PSOE of not fulfilling the philosophy of social justice that is in this text. “Everyone will contribute according to their economic capacity through a fair tax system,” Díaz read. “It is not our competition, and we are in favor of fiscal pedagogy, but that starts above,” he insisted.
To add, in addition, it is not made up of showing your discrepancy in this wheel. The training wants the minimum wage to remain exempt from taxation and is willing to battle it. The group soon communicates that “it will exercise its parliamentary autonomy” and last afternoon has presented a proposal of law in this regard in Congress. In his press release, the group claimed that the Treasury decision has been “unilaterally and without consensus with the government partner.” In the party they do not understand the position of the PSOE and in addition to considering it an “attack” against the workers who charge less, they believe that they also benefit them electorally. “I assume that they will rectify, and if not, we will make them rectify,” says a source of the parliamentary group.
The political reactions to the announcement of the Department of Montero have been unleashed throughout the afternoon and after the APMAR proposal, we can also and PP, in this order, they have reported the registration of their own initiatives to ensure that the minimum wage is exempt of taxation. “It seems to us an absolute scandal that this government is forgiving the taxes on energy at the same time as for the first time in our history the people who charge the SMI will begin paying taxes,” said Ione Belarra in the halls of the congress. The popular, meanwhile, have submitted two law propositions in the Cortes, reports Elsa García de Blas. “Feijóo got the government to rectify last year and already demanded it yesterday, Monday, again through the spokesman, Borja Sémper, after the meeting of the Management Committee. This morning, before the Council of Ministers ended, the president of the PP demanded an immediate rectification to the government to stop extending this agony to the most vulnerable, ”says the PP in a brief statement.
Among the nationalist partners, the Treasury measure has also caused rejection. BNG has criticized the announcement and EH Bildu and ERC have stated that they will support the initiative to add. The PNV spokesman in Congress, Aitor Esteban, stressed that in the Basque Autonomous Community, with full competencies on the IRPF, there is a principle of agreement between his party and its PSOE partners so that the minimum wage does not pay no tax . Without ruling categorically on which position the party will adopt in Congress, Esteban has added: “I understand the Treasury, but I also understand that you have to help those who are in a more difficult situation,” he informs Xosé Hermida.
The agreed increase between the government and the unions for this year leaves the monthly amount at 1,184 euros, 16,576 euros gross per year. If the Ministry does not update the IRPF to this increase, that is, if you leave the law as it is, a part of those who perceive this salary (fundamentally the singles without children) will see the amount charged largely. From adding, they remember that Spain is a country with a mass of 2.4 million SMI receiving workers. “It is an important amount because we have done in seven years the work that governments have developed for twenty,” they claim and add that the way to get that mass of employees from the minimum wage is precisely raising salaries. “In this way they would cease to be perceptors of the SMI and could be taxed normally,” they say before appealing to the government agreement sealed with the PSOE to incorporate the reports of the Observatory of the Business Margins to the negotiation of collective agreements, which would rise Salaries and the number of minimal wage perceptors would decrease, something that, as they denounce, “is not being fulfilled.”
