Summary

In 2018, tax revenues reached 208.685 billion euros, which represented a growth of 7.6%.

The increase compared to 2017 is affected by the change in the VAT submission dates of taxpayers covered by the Immediate Information Supply (SII) system, a change that occurred as of July 2017 and which meant a shift in income of 2017 to 2018. If this element is corrected, revenue would have grown by 5.4% .

2018 was a year of slowdown in real activity. Real GDP, deflated membership or total sales and the number of wage earners in large companies, among other indicators, grew less than in 2017. However, in nominal terms and in particular in the aggregates most closely related to the evolution of income, such as domestic demand and employee compensation, the situation was somewhat different: The first slowed down less than real GDP and the second grew more than in 2017.

In this environment the aggregate tax base of the main taxes grew by 6.1% in 2018 , growth almost one point higher than that of 2017, prolonging the upward trend that has characterized the evolution of these bases in the last five years and thus surpassing the maximum that had been reached in 2007. Income-related bases increased more than they did in 2017, with more intense growth in the second half of 2018, following the increases in salaries and public pensions approved in the Budgets and due to the improvement in corporate profits. From an expenditure perspective, however, the base growth rate was high, but slightly lower than in the previous year, in line with the profile of domestic demand.

The effective rate on income and expenditure remained practically stable in 2018 (up 0.1%), so the taxes accrued on the four main tax types increased at the same rate as the bases, 6.1%. Adding the rest of the figures, accrued taxes grew by 5.7%. In both cases, the growth is very similar to that achieved in 2017 and similar to that recorded by tax revenues once the impact of the SII was eliminated.

As a result of all the above, the growth of tax revenues was concentrated in direct taxes. Income from IRPF increased by 7.6%, mainly as a result of the increase in withholdings from work and gross income from the annual declaration. Revenues in the Corporate Tax grew by 7.3%. The main component of the tax, the split payments, rose by 11.7% due to the good performance of profits, although the growth of the tax was slowed by the increase in refunds. In indirect taxes, growth, without SII, was more moderate. Income from VAT (corrected for SII) grew by 3.7%, an increase lower than the estimate for the final expense subject to the tax due to the high volume of refunds made and the decrease in income from previous periods. Revenue from Excise Taxes increased by 1.1%. Net revenue from the Hydrocarbon Tax grew above its consumption, compared to a 2017 level affected by negative regional adjustments. As usual, the Tobacco Tax had an irregular trajectory throughout the year, closing with a 1.4% drop in revenue. In the Electricity Tax, revenues increased by 3.5%, mostly due to the atypical behaviour of consumption in 2017. In the case of the Coal Tax, revenues fell by 13.1% compared to 2017, a year in which, due to the drought, there was intensive use of coal as a substitute for the generation of electrical energy. Revenues from alcohol-related taxes fell slightly. Among the figures, the Non-Resident Income Tax stood out with revenues increasing by 17.2%. In contrast, in Chapter III (fees and other revenues) the revenue collected in 2018 was 0.3% lower than in 2017, mainly due to the drop in revenue from the Fee for the use of inland waters for the production of electricity, also affected by the drought in 2017 (the fiscal year settled in 2018).