Madrid, Feb 15 (EFE).- The banking employers’ associations AEB and CECA have filed two contentious-administrative appeals before the National Court against the ministerial order in which the extraordinary tax for the sector is included, as they have informed EFE.
The two associations, which represent both the traditional banks and the banking groups created by the old savings banks, appeal directly to the ministerial order approving the declaration and advance payment models of the new tax on banks.
With this rate, the Government intends to raise 3,000 million in two years to partly finance the social measures approved to deal with the rise in rates and inflation.
The bank employers renounce to request the precautionary suspension of the tax and resort to the judicial route that is considered faster, although it may still take a couple of months until a lawsuit is formalized.
With the appeal filed, the matter will reach the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the National Court, which will transfer the appeal to the defendant, in this case the Ministry of Finance, so that it can assess the file before the court hears the arguments of both parties, explain legal sources.
In this way, it would take approximately two months until the claim is formalized.
In any case, what is clear is that the bank has decided to appeal the ministerial order and there are several points on which it will focus, among them that the new tax taxes income -the interest margin plus commissions- instead of the benefits, which the Government considers extraordinary due to the rise in rates.
In addition, the sector has always handled other arguments such as that the tax threatens competition, since it does not affect all entities, but rather those whose interests and commissions totaled at least 800 million.
Compatible with individual resources
Regardless of the recourse to the ministerial order presented by the employers before the National Court, the banks will have to make the first payment of the tax before February 20 and may challenge, individually, this self-assessment before the Tax Agency, which will up to six months to respond.
In the event that they did not, the claim would go directly to the courts.
The large Spanish banks -Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank, Sabadell, Bankinter and Unicaja- will pay more than 1,100 million euros this year for the new tax, which taxes the interest margin and net commissions of the banking business at 4.8% in Spain.
CaixaBank will assume the largest bank bill in payment of this tax, some 400 million this year. Next are Banco Santander and BBVA with a very similar amount, around 225 million.
In the case of Sabadell, the extraordinary tax will make the bank pay around 170 million this year, above the range of between 80 and 100 million estimated by Bankinter.
Unicaja Banco has not refined the figures, but taking into account the data presented, the payment would not exceed 85 million. What’s more, considering only the banking business, this data could be lower.
