Like a jug of cold water. This is how the decision not to reduce VAT on fish and meat from the last Council of Ministers fell on fishing and meat associations. After approving the temporary elimination for six months of VAT on products considered essential, which had a 4% tax, and reducing VAT on oil and pasta from 10% to 5%, it was a matter of time before the representatives of meat and fish put the cry in the sky.
Not only do they, as has happened with fedepesca (Federation of Provincial Associations of Retail Entrepreneurs of Fish and Frozen Products), for not seeing the VAT reduced in the retail trade of a product such as fish —if applicable—, nor as announced Anice (National Association of Meat Industries of Spain), which also called for lowering the value added tax, but rather for the inconcretion that results from the concept of first necessity.
Eggs, milk, cheese, common bread, potatoes and tubers and bread-making flour, as well as fruits, vegetables, they fall within what is considered a basic necessity according to the different laws that have been taxing VAT in our country, as stated in Law 37/1992, which with its modifications has been governing the Value Added Tax in Spain , based on different points of cohesion after joining the European Union.
However, despite finding products of animal origin (such as eggs, cheese and milk), there has never been any mention of fresh and frozen products such as meat and fish, nor have preserves ever been included in this super-reduced VAT rate.
To find out why they are not included in that VAT, you have to take a look at article 91, where it is explained that they will be taxed with 10% VAT, among other products, the following:
2nd Animals, plants and other products that can be used habitually and suitably to obtain the products referred to in the previous number, directly or mixed with others of a different origin. This number includes animals destined for fattening before being used for human or animal consumption and the breeding animals of the same or of those others referred to in the preceding paragraph.
That is to say, this is where we find the justification why meat and fish do not carry the super-reduced VAT of 4% and part of the reasons why associations like Fedepesca raise a cry to heaven, since the general director of Fedepesca, Maria Luisa Alvarez Blanco, considers that “it is derived from a VAT Law to which many modifications have been made and where the concept of basic necessity has become obsolete, since comes from a post-Franco economy in which it was necessary to legislate on that first need with products that were more widely available, such as bread, milk, eggs or dairy products,” he said by telephone.
“We have to change the concept of first need for that of healthy food”
The law to which it alludes and which is currently echoed by the VAT Law is Decree 2484/1967, of September 21, 1967, still in Franco’s times and under the presidency of Carlos Arias Navarro, which approves the text of what is called the Spanish Food Code and that there are several mentions in the current text of Law 37/1992.
The complaint, says Álvarez Blanco, is that “in a country like Spain we have to change the concept of basic necessity to healthy food because those periods of scarcity have been overcome.” A consideration that, in his opinion, should focus on “changing that concept, talk about quality and healthy food and trying to favor the right foods in a diet.
Something that Anice also complained about before the measures were taken, since they demanded that the VAT on meat products also be lowered, equally focused on healthy reasons. To do this, they endorsed from a press release that “the drop in VAT on meat would contribute to make this food more accessible to the population with lower incomes and would provide a balanced and varied diet, typical of the Mediterranean diet”.
“It looks like a It is a contradiction that we are now talking about staple food again and going from 4% to zero, but when you have products like fish and we had the opportunity to equate them to healthy or essential products, we throw it away,” says Álvarez Blanco angrily.
“That caviar has a 4% VAT instead of 10% is not going to make me buy it more. It is a demagogic argument”
In addition, he explains that, in his opinion, demagogy is being practiced on this subject, since they allude to punctualities that would affect, for example, sumptuous products such as caviar and lobster. “It is a demagogic argument because my purchase decision will not change on products that are already expensive“he warns.
“That lobster or caviar lower your VAT from 10% to 4% would not make you buy more, but with cheaper fish and shellfish. To give an example: does it occur to anyone to say that with the super-reduced VAT we are going to buy more chanterelles or more boletus? Well, the same thing would happen with seafood and fish “, he summarizes.
It regrets, in the same sense, that with this VAT reduction, “it divert consumer to consumer to supermarket and the large distribution because that is also where you will find pasta and oil, as well as milk or flour”.
From the bewilderment, the discomfort of Álvarez Blanco and those he represents, can be summed up as “we are trying to understand why; instead of trying to match us, they have left us at 10%, but then you lower oil and pasta to 5%“He comments, stressing that he has nothing against lowering other tax rates.
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“You have to encourage the consumption of healthy products such as fish, which is something that even the Ministry of Consumption has an impact on, recommending three weekly servings. Even more so when it is the vulnerable families that eat the worst. We talk about the right to a healthy diet, that’s why I don’t understand it; because it was in his power to guarantee the right to healthy food, “he insists, adding that he does not know if this decision” has some political overtones at the table of the council of ministers“.
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https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1967-16485
https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1992-28740