IEB Report

Political Economy

Environmental taxation

IEB Report 2/2014

Once again the Spanish tax system finds itself immersed in a process of fiscal reform.This summer the Government has introduced three bills1 that seek to “address a comprehensive reform of our tax system as it currently stands”, as stated in the preamble to the first of these bills. In the current economic situation, the Government considers it a priority “to revise our tax system so as to improve the efficiency of resource allocation and tax neutrality, thus stimulating economic growth and job creation”, as well as ensuring financial sufficiency for all levels of public administration. Consequently, the current tax reform would seem to be characterized by attempts to make the tax system more efficient, with the goal of promoting growth in the economy and tackling the job shortage, without overlooking of course the primary objective of fiscal consolidation. In short, improving efficiency and guaranteeing sufficiency are the two main objectives of the reform.