MADRID (Reuters) – The Spanish government wants to slap a tax on the wealthiest 1% of Spaniards for two years from 2023 as a way to complement planned taxes on energy companies and banks amid soaring inflation, Budget Minister Maria Jesus Montero said on Thursday.
She said she was negotiating with the junior coalition partner, the leftist Unidas Podemos, which had that initiative in its electoral programme.
She provided no details on what the tax rate would be or how much it was hoping to raise, telling laSexta television channel only that “we are talking about millionaires, those who are in the 1% of income”.
The tax should be in force next year, Montero said, but acknowledged that parliamentary approval procedures mean it might not be ready by the start of 2023.
“We are going to use a similar scheme to that for energy companies and banking. For the next two years…the big fortunes of this country will be asked to make a temporary effort,” she said.
(Reporting by Belén Carreño, editing by Andrei Khalip)
