Pedro Sanchez prepares a fiscal sword for the coming months. The President of the Government announced a few weeks ago that there will soon be a tax increase in Spain and everything indicates that since Moncloa They want to get their hands on the inheritance tax, which depends on the autonomous communities and that many, as is the case of Madrid or Andalusiathey have decided to subsidize it and make it symbolic.
To try to raise more money through taxes, in OKDIARIO We already reported at the time that Pedro Sanchez is preparing a tax reform in which it intends to force the Community of Madrid, among others, to collect inheritance and gift tax and also to increase the rates within personal income tax. To do this, the Government intends to create a temporary and solidarity tax that has a minimum rate and is mandatory. This will be their way of going against the decision of many communities not to collect another tax from taxpayers.
He inheritance tax taxes free acquisitions regulated in the aforementioned tax law when they are made by natural persons, such as inheritances, legacies, donations, etc. In simpler terms, this is the tax that people have to pay, regardless of their economic level, when they receive a free inheritance from a person who has died. They can only be heirs to these properties if they pay amounts that sometimes cannot be assumed by the aspiring owners.
This tax is stipulated in the Law 29/1987of December 18, and the rule makes it clear in its first paragraphs that “of a direct and subjective nature, it taxes the capital gains obtained for profit by natural persons, in the terms provided for in this Law.” In this way, it establishes as a taxable event “the acquisition of goods and rights by inheritance, legacy or any other succession title” or “by donation or any other legal transaction free of charge, ‘inter vivos’.”
The inheritance tax in the autonomous communities
He inheritance tax It is the direct responsibility of the autonomous communities and that is why many have chosen to free the heirs from this burden and reduce this tax to 99% so that the amount that citizens have to pay is symbolic. One of the examples of them is the Community of Madrid, in which Isabel Diaz Ayuso has practically eliminated this tax.
“The Community of Madrid has promoted the practical elimination of the Inheritance Tax for cases in which the heir had the following kinship relationship with the deceased,” states the CAM on its website in which it makes it clear that they will have a bonus of the 99% of descendants (children, grandchildren…) and adoptees under the age of twenty-one, as well as adoptees aged twenty-one or older, spouse, ascendant (parents, grandparents…) and adopters.
In other autonomous communities such as Andalusia, the Valencian Community, La Rioja, the Canary Islands, Castilla y León and Murcia, the inheritance tax is reduced to 99% in the case of direct descendants and citizens will only have to pay a 1% symbolic fee.
In other parts of Spain they have other ways of interpreting inheritance taxes, as is the case of Navarra or Castilla-La Mancha in which they only have to pay inheritances that exceed 300,000. In the Balearic Islands and the Basque Country, those who exceed 400,000 will have to pay the tax, while in Aragon inheritances of less than 100,000 are 65% exempt and those of up to three million are 100% exempt. In the case of Catalonia, there will be a 99% bonus only for the spouse who receives an inheritance and then it will be from 66% to 99% in the case of a relationship with a deceased person.
The inheritance tax has been in the news for some time because the majority of autonomous communities have preferred to eliminate it, contrary to what seems to be the government’s strategy. Government facing the last months of 2024 and 2025: carry out a large tax collection with which to be able to sustain a system that is hanging by a thread due to the high number of spending on pensions, the numbers of unemployed that may rise in the last quarter of the year and the high youth unemployment that places Spain at the bottom of Europe in this area.
