• The Church agrees with the Government to pay two taxes from which it was exempt until now

The Catholic Church has renounced two tax exemptions from which it benefited to date and for which it did not pay either Special Contributions or the Tax on Constructions, Installations and Works (ICIO), but will continue not to pay the Property Tax (IBI), from which it is exempt under the Patronage Law, and that it would really mean a significant increase in their contribution to the public coffers.

The two exemptions that he has renounced in practice are "minor", experts in taxation point out to this newspaper, and will not mean a strong increase in the collection of the Tax Agency since "it will depend on the works that the Church does in municipalities that have it implemented, while special contributions are very unusual. "

Even so, sources of the Episcopal Conference explain to EL MUNDO that the Church did not want to enjoy that privilege and that this has been transferred to the Government, with whom it staged the agreement yesterday. "These two taxes were real taxes and the Church was exempt from paying them for the settlements. Although the ICIO was created after the agreements, when it was defined that it was a royal tax, it was understood that the Church was exempt because it was real," they explain, referring to the agreements between the Holy See and the State signed in 1976 and 1979.

Asked by this newspaper, the Ministry of Finance says it does not have a calculation of how much the Tax Agency can enter with this regulatory change, but it will be very little compared to what it would collect if it applied the IBI to the heritage that the Church has in real estate and buildings in the center of all Spanish cities.

From the Episcopal Conference, however, they remember that the Church does not pay IBI for its properties because it is included in the Patronage Law, which grants tax benefits to institutions that provide a service to society. "Trade unions, embassies, parties, sports federations, development NGOs are also exempt... we have the same exemption as all others for providing a service to society and being protected by law. If the Law is modified and the Government says that all these institutions must start paying the IBI, we will do so, but it cannot be that the Church is made to pay the IBI and a union or a sports federation does not, "they defend.

"The Church does not want privileges, but neither does it want discrimination. We had a small privilege with the ICIO and we have renounced it, but we do not want discrimination either," they say.

The second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, has indicated on her Twitter account that "no one should have tax privileges, not even the Catholic Church" and has assured that the Government will work "to review the exemptions in the IBI from which it benefits".

The agreement closed on Wednesday has been led by the Ministry of the Presidency and the Episcopal Conference, but since it interprets the agreements of the Church, signed between two states (the Vatican and Spain), it has been signed between the nuncio and the undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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  • Taxation