Sunday, March 03, 2019

The Generalitat spent 17 million of public money to start up the Catalan Treasury


ESTEBAN URREIZTIETA
ÁNGELES ESCRIVÁ



The Civil Guard reports to the judge that Puigdemont diverted this amount of public money to develop the Tax Code, the Tax Board, the Fiscal Council, the deployment of the Treasury and to increase the workforce of these institutions.

This previously unknown information has been found in a pen drive of the former Secretary of the Treasury Josep Lluís Salvadó and has just been sent to the court.

It also reflects the total investment expected in case of independence: 500 million to create a Catalan Treasury with 7,000 employees.

The Civil Guard quantifies in at least 17 million public euros the figure deviated "effectively" by the Generalitat chaired by Carles Puigdemont to launch the Catalan Tax Agency. The Judicial Police Unit has prepared a new report, to which EL MUNDO has had access, in which it analyzes the documentation intervened on a pen drive that was confiscated from former Finance Secretary Josep Lluís Salvadó.

Specifically, "a working document prepared by the Department of Vice Presidency, Economy and Finance" on the "coordination, supervision and monitoring of activities and measures aimed at the creation of the Catalan state and that affect, basically, the tax area" has been found. It reflects the funds that "effectively" have already been arranged to obtain "full fiscal sovereignty" through the development of a Tax Code, a Tax Board and a Fiscal Council, increase the workforce and enhance territorial deployment.

The intervened report included a series of measures that "are integrated into the autonomic road" but constitute "an intermediate stage to implement many others with the ultimate goal of creating the Catalan state and ensure its economic viability". Thus, the new documentation confiscated from Salvadó states that "the deployment of the Tax Administration would require 499.869.737 euros and increase the workforce to around 7,000 people without quantifying the amount necessary for the deployment of customs or the agency of real estate property".

700 more staff

Thus, the Civil Guard stresses, "they intended to prepare an international agreement to avoid double taxation with Spain using the OECD model and starting from the hypothesis of guaranteeing the advantages of applying community directives". "All this taking into account that they proposed to create the Office of International Taxation even knowing that, at present, they do not have competences in this matter".

"It can be affirmed", continues the Judicial Police, "that the Department of the Vice Presidency, Economy and Treasury has been working on the disconnection". "Specifically and initially they are doing it until exhausting what they call autonomic way for what they have valued assets in Catalonia with the purpose of incorporating them into the heritage of the Generalitat, they have approved the normative development whose main frame was established by Law 17/2017 of August 1 of the Tax Code of Catalonia and have designed the organizational structure of the future tax administration".

"Implementing for this purpose", adds the Civil Guard, "the Tax Board, the Fiscal Council, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the Tax Agency, its territorial deployment, the implementation of the e-SPRIU system and the improvement of the GAUDÍ system". Thus, "without having been a normative contribution to regulate them, there is evidence that they were working on the development of the Customs Agency, the International Taxation Office and the Real Estate Agency".

"Based on the above and the figures" seized from Salvadó, "it can be affirmed that part of the resources that they had planned to spend, have been effectively arranged". For it is clear that "the activation of the Tax Board, the Fiscal Council, the Fiscal Research Institute and a good part of the territorial deployment of the Tax Agency has been carried out and the workforce has increased to 700 people".

Full fiscal sovereignty


"Therefore, and without being convincingly ratified, it can be thought that part of the resources foreseen for the development of the Tax Code, which had been set at 200,000 euros, have been invested; for the deployment of the Tax Board, the Fiscal Council and the Institute of Fiscal Investigation which had a joint cost of 7,800,000 euros; for the territorial deployment of the tax administration budgeted at 4,500,000 euros; and for the implementation of the e-SPRIU system, estimated at 4,923,848 euros.

"In summary," the researchers conclude, "it is inferred that around 17 million euros have been invested in the deployment of the tax administration as an intermediate stage to achieve full fiscal sovereignty of the future Catalan state".

https://www.elmundo.es/espana/2019/03/01/5c7847c0fdddff8dbf8b4697.html
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