The president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, and vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, presented this morning the Catalan Tax Agency as a "fundamental state organisation" which guarantees that the Catalan government is "prepared to make the will of the Catalan people" a reality to be expressed in the referendum on 1st October.
"We say that we're prepared and that it's the best guarantee of the functioning of a normal country", said Puigdemont in the joint press conference given by the two highest ranking members of the government to present the culmination of the unveiling of the Agency.
The president highlighted that the Agency's deployment has been completed ahead of schedule and better than planned, despite the predictions of those forecasting "catastrophe", underlining that the government's objective is for this new administration to be much closer, much fairer (that it fights better against fraud) and more efficient.
Junqueras explained that the Agency has the potential to collect 42 billion euros, 15 times greater than the actual revenue for 2017. "This certifies us as an agency comparable to the best of our neighbours' and makes us more efficient in the fight against fiscal fraud," the vice-president said. He also specified that, this year, the Catalan Tributary Agency has raised 400 million from fraud.
"We like the responsibility, we love it, and we want to exercise all of it, not just in the area of spending, but also in collection," said the vice-president. He explained that the Agency will "adapt itself to the challenges the future brings, making it clear that one of the main objectives his Treasury department is pursuing is "to have the rating we merit, fruit of the direct relationship between our budget management and our tax collection and not conditioned on other factors."
Deployment
With today's presentation, the Tax Agency has increased its staff. Between July and August it has hired 250 new workers for a total workforce of 800 this autumn, with 19 offices of its own and 12 shared with local administrations.
It incorporates the institutional architecture of the Catalan Treasury with the approval of the first part of the Tax Code, passed by the Catalan Parliament, and a new computer system that allows it to manage periodic and large-scale taxes, as discussed by the secretary of the Treasury, Lluís Salvadó.
Managment of public sector state taxes
The Agency, moreover, will act as the manager of tax services. It will be in charge of the executive management of debts for the Catalan Traffic Service and for the regional governments, among others, besides managing and paying the state taxes of the public sector in Catalonia (VAT, income tax and social security payments) for the 170 public and 500 semi-public entities as well as the local administrations that join. This will make for a total of 2.5 billion euros per year that Catalan public agencies pay to the Spanish state that the ATC will manage.