Washington, (EFE).- The Spanish Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, José Luis Escrivá, defended this Wednesday the position of the Government to review that the social transfer of Ferrovial to the Netherlands meets the requirements.
“What the Government has done is simply alert that when there are tax benefits, since this is a waiver of public income, it has to be highly justified. We will have to review whether the conditions are met, ”he told reporters in Washington.
Escrivá is in the US capital within the framework of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), which take place from Monday to Sunday and in which he has participated in various meetings and panels.
Ferrovial, at the gates of approving his transfer
The minister spoke the day before Ferrovial held a historic shareholders’ meeting to approve its corporate transfer to the Netherlands.
The company will put 13 items on the agenda to a vote and the tenth is the determining factor since the approval of an intra-community cross-border merger depends on it, through which Ferrovial will be absorbed by its Dutch subsidiary Ferrovial International SE (FISE).
“I think that everyone who believes in fiscal responsibility has to agree that a government has to evaluate very carefully and with great precision whether the conditions that give rise to a benefit for an individual, in this case for a company, materialize or not. I think no one can be surprised by that,” the minister concluded.
The existence or not of a valid economic reason – that is, if the operation responds to business or strictly fiscal criteria – determines whether to pay taxes on latent capital gains, which in this type of operation are usually high amounts. The impact must be calculated by the Tax Agency.
The pension reform
Escrivá added at the Spanish embassy that his meetings in Washington have allowed him to expose his interlocutors and value the process by which the pension reform was achieved in Spain.
“I have explained how the consensus has been formed, how we have achieved very broad support from the unions, for example by introducing elements into the system that reinforce solidarity and how this is compatible with a framework of sustainability in the medium and long term of the system of pensions,” he said.
Without “prejudging” what has been applied in other countries, which in the case of France has found a broad popular response for which this Thursday there will be a twelfth day of mobilization, Escrivá pointed out that “the mechanisms that are in the norm for address future contingencies.