The world and Spanish economies continue to face an unprecedented crisis in recent history. At Equipo Economico, we estimate that Spanish GDP will have experienced a drop close to 12% in 2020, and that we will witness a partial recovery of the economy in the next two years with annual growth rates of 6.8% and 2.6%, respectively. However, the recovery that we pose in our next year’s forecast has a certain artificial character, insofar as it depends directly on the continuation of the short-term effects of expansionary economic policies. We will have to wait for the “veil” created by these policies and other measures adopted to face the crisis to disappear, in order to certainly determine the profound structural change that is actually taking place.
In a year marked by the appearance of COVID19 and the decrease in international displacements, we reflect on the latest rulings of the General Directorate of Taxes and the administrative interpretation criteria regarding tax residence of individuals.
The interests of a large number of taxpayers (individuals and corporations) were waiting for the Supreme Court to put the following question in black on white: whether or not it was legal to initiate disciplinary proceedings before notification of the settlement agreement from which it originated.
The analysis of the 2021 Budgetary Plan sent to Brussels by the Spanish Government leads us to affirm that public income will hardly reach the expected increase next year. In addition, by not insisting on the necessary search for the efficiency in public spending, everything indicates that public deficits for 2020 and 2021 will be higher than official forecasts. However, it is through the achievement of solid macroeconomic and budgetary fundamentals, opening up to the outside world and undertaking structural reforms, that the Spanish economy will overcome the current crisis, as it has done so on previous occasions.
The world economy continues to tackle the severe crisis caused by Covid-19. The pandemic has plummeted the Spanish economy harder than the rest of its European partners. The recovery of activity in the weeks following the end of the confinement has not shown the expected drive during the summer. Against this backdrop, Equipo Económico (Ee) has revised its GDP forecast for this year two points downwards, when the drop in GDP will reach -12.0%. The degree of success and effectiveness of economic policy will very much determine the strength of the recovery.