27 Spanish multinationals with 25,000 million profit paid only 0.3% of their tax benefits

Can you imagine being the owner of a multinational that invoice more than 4,000 million euros, what earns almost 1 billion every year and that pays (absolutely legally) just two million for Corporation Tax? This is what happens to 27 large Spanish companies, according to data from the Tax Agency. The Treasury has just published data for the first time Global taxation of the 134 Spanish multinationals that invoice more than 750 million a year, with an average effective rate on the benefits of 12.6%. This means that these 134 companies paid 11,594 million euros in taxes for profits of 91,849 million and sales of 934,408 million, almost one billion.

However, that average is very far from the reality of 27 of these multinationals, whose benefits are practically tax free, according to the Treasury's own data. Together, these 27 companies had a turnover of 110,944 million euros (4,109 on average) and a profit of 25,325 million (938 million on average). However, in sum they barely paid 65 million euros for the Corporation Tax, which yields an average rate of only 0.3% and an average of 2.4 million taxation per company. These data from the Tax Agency are collected according to the information submitted by the companies themselves corresponding to 2016, the last year for which there are updated figures.

The analysis carried out by the Tax Agency, "pioneer worldwide," according to the agency, offers aggregate information on 134 business groups and 16,160 subsidiaries, including 10,967 foreigners. The Treasury explained in a statement that until now, the Tax Agency has been publishing statistics based on the data declared in the Corporation Tax in Spain, which present the effective rates to which companies and groups in our country are taxed. These types were calculated both on the taxable bases of the tax and on the declared accounting results, including the latter also the income obtained abroad and likely to have been taxed in other countries. "Therefore, in the case of globalized companies, the information presented was not complete by not yet having information on their taxation in the rest of the countries, "he says.

Despite these data, they are limited only to business giants that benefit from a multitude of tax deductions for R&D, internationalization, etc., Spanish companies as a whole pay a corporate tax that is much higher than the European average. Specifically, 23% higher than our neighbors, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). According to their figures, The average effective rate paid by Spanish firms is 24.8%, compared to 20% on average in the European Union. This places Spain as the seventh country with the highest corporate tax burden. This scenario clashes with the intentions of the PSOE and Podemos to increase fiscal pressure on companies. In fact, the OECD warns that a corporate tax increase could scare away investment and move it away from Spain.