The tax harmonization of mortis causa transfers under review: From self-management financial to recentralization

Abstract

The Inheritance Tax is a tax assigned to the regions, as an expression of their fiscal and financial autonomy, conferred by the Organic Law of Financing of the Autonomous Communities. Over the years, each territory has exercised this competence in a very diverse way, so that the taxation of lucrative transfers is very uneven depending on the place where they are carried out. This situation has led the Central Administration to raise the need to establish a minimum taxation throughout the Spanish territory, allowing the autonomies to legislate only part of the tax quota, in the same way as is done with the Personal Income Tax. This article addresses the doctrinal debate on the need to establish or not a uniform tax throughout the territory, limiting the powers conferred on the regions as a way of financing previously assigned expenses, trying to achieve a level of self-management and financial responsibility that until then had not been raised.