Sánchez extends his tax on energy companies also to banking and sinks the Ibex 35
Pedro Sánchez targets the energy and banking sectors. During the Debate on the State of the Nation in the Congress of Deputies, the President of the Government announced a tax on both guildsin order to finance the fiscal effort to deal with the blow of inflation on households and companies.
A formal announcement in the Lower House but of which, at the moment, only words are known. As reported by La Moncloa, the head of the Executive has spoken of taxes "of an exceptional and temporary nature", with which it is a matter of taxing the exorbitant profits that the Government considers that both energy companies and banks are obtaining. In the case of the first of these sectors, several ministers had already slipped the idea in recent weeks; in the second case it is a novelty.
This tax increase seeks to raise a total of 3,500 million euros per year. Of these, 2,000 million in collections would come from the tax on energy companies, which "will tax the extraordinary profits obtained in 2022 and 2023." For its part, the punishment of the banks would report a collection to the State of 1,500 million euros per year during this year and the next.
The great novelty is in the tax on financial entities, which has been received in the sector with great surprise. They did not expect that the attack on the energy companies would also extend to their union, although, in any case, they emphasize that they still have to review how the measure will be articulated. That is to say, what exactly is going to be taxed, if it would be done through a new tax or with some type of surcharge in Companies...
Likewise, as ABC has publishedthe Bank of Spain itself has dismantled the Government's thesis on the extraordinary benefits that La Moncloa ensures that the large Ibex 35 corporations are receiving. The reality, according to the supervisor, is different: the data obtained from a thousand companies reveal that, in the last year, margins have only increased in companies with financial constraints.
For now, Sánchez's announcement has upset the mood in the financial sector. So much so that the big banks have collapsed in the markets as soon as the news was known. Caixabank leaves 9%; Sabadell 8%; Bankinter 6.4%; BBVA 5.4%; and Santander, 4.3%.
And in an Ibex 35 in which it depends heavily on a sector such as banking, the Spanish selective has not endured either and has sunk to the beat of the falls of the affected unions. The Spanish parquet has gone from growing to leaving more than 1.3% in a matter of a few minutes.
All this also pushed by the punishment on the stock market that energy companies are experiencing, which have turned around in the Spanish selective from positive values to generalized falls in Endesa, Iberdrola, Repsol, Naturgy...
Thus, in banking they are cautious waiting to know the details but they are already discounting a possible effect of this tax increase: that it ends up being passed on to the consumer. Because if the sector is increased by the costs imposed by the public sector, traditionally these have been transferred to users, which achieves the opposite effect to what was expected, according to financial sources, who do not hesitate to mention that the announcement has overtones of « robbery» on the benefits.
