The provincial administrations analyze the effect of the TC ruling on the Capital Gains Law

The provincial and municipal administrations of the CAV and Navarra are working to clarify to what extent the ruling of the Constitutional Court on the Law on the Tax on the Increase in the Value of Urban Land, known as municipal capital gain, affects them, which has brought that the Government of Spain has modified said law to adapt to the requirements set by the TC.

The provincial estates of Álava, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Navarra are studying the ruling of the TC to determine to what extent they affect the provincial regulations that regulate this tax.

Sources of the Treasury of Bizkaia They have indicated that, before entering into the design of an alternative tax figure, it is necessary to study whether the sentence that annuls the municipal capital gain, affects or, where appropriate, how it affects the regional norm.

Therefore, they believe that it is not necessary to rush and now it is still in that phase of analysis of the sentence, which they will share with the other councils and with the municipalities, which are in charge of paying this tax. Once this study is completed, as they have pointed out, it will be time to “act accordingly.”

The president of the Association of Basque Municipalities-Eudel, Gorka Urtaran, has considered “positive” that the central government has acted “quickly” to adapt the tax on municipal capital gains to the ruling of the Constitutional Court (TC), which declared this tax figure null, “avoiding unfair situations for taxpayers and guaranteeing legal certainty to city councils “.

Urtaran has explained that the Tax Coordination Body – made up of the Basque Government and the provincial councils – will have to analyze the state decree and then adapt the referred provincial regulations in a “harmonized” way. The president of Eudel has stated that it will be necessary to analyze the “fine print” of the decree and, later, to adapt “quickly” the provincial regulations of Bizkaia, Álava and Gipuzkoa in relation to this tax figure, a process, as indicated, it should occur “in a matter of days”, as “you have to act diligently”.

For its part, the mayors of San Sebastián and Bilbao, Eneko Goia and Juan Mari Aburto, They have already communicated that they have suspended the collection of said tax until it is clarified in what way the judgment of the TC may affect the provincial regulations, which establish the conditions for the collection of said tax by the municipalities.

Eneko Goia has confirmed that, despite the fact that, initially the municipalities can continue to collect the tax, the San Sebastian town hall has decided to suspend the pending settlements “for legal certainty” until the situation is clarified.

The mayor of Bilbao, Juan Mari Aburto, has urged to take steps “calmly” in relation to the capital gains tax and always with the “clear” intention that “there is no decrease” in the income of the municipalities.

Aburto has advocated taking “the steps calmly”, while reminding that it is a concerted tax, “with which the competence in our case would be of the General Meetings”, for which, as he has pointed out, “It is necessary to analyze from the provincial councils what is the effect that it has”.