proposes a permanent tax on banks to collect at least 50% of the profit

The Plenary Session of Congress this Tuesday will debate and vote on a Podemos law proposal so that the amount to be paid for the banking tax “in no case” can be less than 50% of the gross profit obtained by the financial entity, and that These resources are allocated to housing aid and the construction of public buildings.

A proposal that is inspired by the tax that the Italian Government of Giorgia Meloni approved last 2023 to collect 40% of the extraordinary profits of banking and allocate those resources to help mortgaged people.

In the case of Podemos, the party proposes a law to double the rate that taxes the margins that financial entities obtain from interest and commissions and which raised 1,200 million euros last year.

Specifically, it proposes that the tax be extended until 2025, with the possibility of making it permanent, and double from the current 4.8% to 10% and that in 2024 and 2025 it be complemented, like Italy and Lithuania, with another tax of 75% on interest and commission margins that are above the 2022 margin.

Podemos points out that the current tax design, which was approved last legislature, is “insufficient to redistribute the profits of big banks.” For this reason, it proposes more ambitious objectives and seeks to raise the extraordinary funds obtained from the rise in interest rates. Of course, the amount to be paid by the banks cannot be lower “in any case than 50% of the gross profit obtained in the reference period.”

In Podemos’s opinion, the tax thus proposed “meets the objectives of effectiveness and payment capacity” and “is not confiscatory”, because it only applies to “excessive and temporary margins.”

The funds obtained for public housing

The resources obtained with the new design of the tax on banks, and also with the energy tax and on large fortunes (all three were approved at the same time) will be allocated to an extraordinary fund for the construction of public housing.

The houses would be used for temporary and emergency social rental in stressed areas, for those vulnerable people on the waiting list for access to officially protected housing.

Podemos previously defended the idea of ​​reinforcing the banking tax because it considered it “crumbs” compared to the benefits that Spanish financial entities obtained in 2023.

The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, made it known to the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, in the first control session of the year. However, Nadia Calviño’s successor recalled the need for the banking sector to be solvent to contribute to the country’s economic growth.