The Tax Agency (AEAT) has presented this Tuesday the 2022 Income campaign , giving the go-ahead to the processing of the declarations that can now be filed at the agency’s electronic headquarters . A campaign in which it is expected to enter 865 million euros more and return 248 less than last year due to the effect of inflation.
The general director of the AEAT, Soledad Fernández Doctor, and the director of the Management department, Rosa Prieto, presented the income campaign this morning at a press conference held at the organization’s Madrid headquarters.
The Treasury expects to receive a total of 22,899,000 declarations throughout the three months that the campaign will last, 3.4% more than those presented in the fiscal year of 2021. With them, the AEAT expects to obtain net income – that is, that is, the difference between the declarations that go out to pay and to return— of 6,502 million, 20% more than in the fiscal year of 2021.
In any case, it should be remembered that the bulk of personal income tax collection comes from withholdings from workers’ payrolls. Only in 2022, the Treasury entered 93,776 million euros in this concept, according to the tax collection report last December. The collection obtained from the declarations is residual.
The forecast of the treasury is that six out of ten of the declarations that are presented (13.6 million) in this campaign go out to return, which will mean a disbursement of 9,946 million euros in favor of taxpayers. This implies that in this fiscal year 248 million less will be returned to taxpayers than in 2021 (a drop of 2.4%). On the other hand, only a third of taxpayers —around 7.6 million returns— will have to pay when presenting the document, which will mean revenue for the AEAT of 16,448 million euros, 865 million more than last year ( an increase of 5.6%).
The general director of the AEAT has attributed this decrease in returns and increases in the amounts to be paid to “increases in income from movable capital” —that is, the profitability obtained from deposits, Treasury bills, dividends, sales of shares …—; the dynamism of real estate activities and the improvement of economic activity in general. He has not referred to the effect of the price increase at any time.
However, a part of the increase in revenue expected in this campaign is directly attributable to inflation. In fact, the Bank of Spain attributes most of the boom in income from personal income tax registered in 2022 to inflation. The impact of inflation is seen, fundamentally, due to the Government’s decision not to deflate the rates of the state section of personal income tax. This is what is known in tax jargon as “cold escalation.” When personal income tax rates are not adapted to inflation, salary increases can produce an increase in the personal income tax rate paid without the worker necessarily having gained purchasing power (prices may have risen more than their salary).
The rates for the state section of personal income tax have not been updated since 2008 . However, in the regional section of the tax, up to 10 autonomous communities will apply some type of reduction in 2023. These are Andalusia, the Canary Islands, Castilla y León, the Balearic Islands, Madrid, Murcia, the Valencian Community, Aragon and the Basque Country and Navarre.
Another of the most striking points of the forecasts of the Tax Agency is the expected decrease both in the declarations of assets and in the income for this concept. The Treasury expects to raise 1,287 million euros thanks to asset declarations , 49 million less than in 2021. A decrease that the general director of the AEAT attributes to the bonuses that autonomous communities such as Andalusia have applied, which, yes, fall within the regulatory powers of the autonomies. “If these bonuses did not occur, there would have been an increase in both the number and the amount [of the declarations],” Fernández pointed out.
470,000 statements already filed
Fernández has communicated that throughout Tuesday morning 470,000 statements have already been submitted, at a rate of 1,500 per minute during the morning. In addition, the AEAT has already registered 1.8 million tax data queries, an essential step before accessing the draft.
At the moment, the declaration can only be submitted online. As of May 3, it will be possible to make an appointment for personalized telephone assistance within the framework of the Le Llamamos plan, which will start on May 5. For the face-to-face campaign to start, we will have to wait until June 1 , although a prior appointment can be requested from May 25.
Taxpayers have until June 30 to submit the declaration and the first refunds will begin to be granted next Thursday , according to the AEAT. In last year’s campaign, around one million statements assisted by telephone and another 650,000 in person. The rest were done online.
