The Plenary Session of the Constitutional Court has rejected the unconstitutionality appeal presented by the Government Council of the Community of Madrid against the temporary solidarity tax on large fortunes, created by Law 38/2022, of December 27 (art. 3).

The ruling rejects all challenges, for the following reasons:

1. Regarding the violation of the ius in officium of the deputies.

The Court applies the constitutional doctrine on the right to amendment, according to which art. 23.2 CE is only violated when there is an obvious and manifest lack of connection between the content of the amendment and the initiative with respect to which it is presented. This is not the case of the tax on large fortunes, since the bill that gave rise to Law 38/2022 was intended to create two taxes (energy and banking) whose purpose was to provide - like the contested tax - of public revenue with which to face the consequences of the energy and price crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Therefore, the amendment meets the homogeneity requirement.

2. Regarding the alleged violation of the financial autonomy of the Community of Madrid.

The ruling recalls that the tax on large fortunes is complementary to the IP - a state-owned tax transferred to the CCAA - so that the amount paid for it is discounted to determine the amount of the new tax, which does not affect or interfere with any of the autonomous powers over the IP. The ruling emphasizes that the appeal does not indicate any regional jurisdiction that has been affected by the contested tax. The real complaint of the Community of Madrid - he clarifies - is that those of its residents with assets greater than 3 million euros (the only ones who are subject to the tax on large fortunes) will have to pay the new state tax, with which Madrid loses its fiscal attractiveness to attract said wealth to its territory. For the Court, this objective cannot prevent the State from exercising its jurisdiction to establish new taxes. If in the past the Constitutional Court has already recognized that the State can occupy an autonomous fiscal space to harmonize it, with even more reason it can do so in its own fiscal space, such as this one.

3. Regarding the violation of the principles of non-confiscatoriality and economic capacity.

It is rejected based on the consolidated constitutional doctrine by which it is understood that the tax on large fortunes would only have a confiscatory effect in the event of depleting the value of the assets, not the income generated by the taxed assets, which is a different manifestation of the capacity economical. And, as regards this last principle, the appeal also does not provide data on the alleged disproportionate nature of the tax rates. What's more, the ruling cites data extracted from AEAT statistics according to which the effective tax rate on large fortunes is below 0.5 percent of the value of the taxed assets, so it is not disproportionate.

4. Regarding the violation of the principle of legal certainty.

The ruling emphasizes that the tax on large fortunes is not applied in relation to a tax period, but only by reference to a specific date (December 31, 2022 and 2023). Therefore, on the date of entry into force there was no situation that had begun to produce effects, so it is not retroactive and the principle of legal certainty is not violated.

The sentence, which has not yet been published, has the dissenting vote of four of the magistrates.