After a process that has taken approximately 20 months since the project’s inclusion in the 2024 Action Plan, the research on Municipal Taxation has been completed, with the publication of the book entitled “Municipal Taxation: assessment and proposals for reform”.
This project is the result of the joint work undertaken by the professionals of the entities that make up the Foundation’s Board of Trustees, with extensive collaboration from the academic sector, one of whose members is also an official of the local Tax Administration.
In addition, the perspective analysis was completed with the participation of officials from the Directorate General for Taxation of the Ministry of Finance, functionaries from the local tax inspection unit and a large number of representatives from the employer associations most affected by Municipal Taxation.
The resulting work is divided into two parts, clearly differentiated in the book’s table of contents, with an analysis of the general issues affecting the local tax system as a whole, and a detailed analysis of the most relevant problems affecting the main items that comprise it.
The first four chapters set out the initial approach and provide an overview of the local tax system, analysing the issues raised by the use of objective assessment and tension with the constitutional principle of the “ability to pay” , the dual management of local taxes and the complexity and legal uncertainty which it causes and, finally, the difficulties of accessing dispute settlement mechanisms and legal protection.
The second part goes on to analyse the most contentious aspects of local taxation: Property Tax, Tax on Economic Activities, Tax on the Increase in the Value of Urban Land, Tax on Motor Vehicles and Tax on Construction and Installations, as well as municipal taxes.
The main conclusions of the work, which are set out in the final chapter entitled “General Conclusions”, concern the need to reform the system in order to resolve the technical difficulties and conflicts that certain aspects generate; the project provides various proposals for this desired reform, in relation to general aspects of the local tax system, as well as specific areas of the legal regime governing the main features of the system.