The Supreme Court dismisses the appeal of Gabriel Mato (PP) and establishes that the salary of MEPs is not exempt from personal income tax

The "popular" leader stopped consigning his income between 2010 and 2013 considering that he was exempt

MADRID, 22 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of the leader of the PP in Europe Gabriel Mato and has established that the salary that MEPs receive from the European Parliament is not exempt from Personal Income Tax (IRPF) considering that the Eurochamber is not a employer and that MEPs exercise functions "freely" and without any employment relationship.

The magistrates have ruled in this way after Mato took his case to the Supreme Court regarding the personal income tax payments corresponding to the period 2010-2013, when the leader stopped recording said amounts on the understanding that the income of 60,100 euros he received from the Eurochamber was exempt.

The Tax Agency corrected Mato's statement, included that income and imposed a sanction on the MEP. The man took the case to the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, which fully confirmed the actions of the administration.

Faced with this resolution, the PP deputy in Europe went to the Supreme Court and argued that the exemption provided for in article 7.p of the personal income tax law for certain jobs abroad could be applied to the income from work contemplated in art. 17.2 of the same Law, which includes those received by MEPs. Thus, he insisted that he was exempt from paying taxes in Spain on the 60,100 euros that the European Parliament paid him.

Now, the Supreme Court has reviewed its jurisprudence and has determined that "there is no doubt that a deputy's relationship with the European Parliament is completely unrelated" to the alienation characteristic referred to in the article cited by Mato, considering that "There is no employment relationship" between the leader and the Chamber.

"Nor can it be accepted that the European Parliament can be regarded as 'a non-resident company or entity in Spain', since the notes that characterize these as an organization aimed at achieving economic or social ends are completely foreign to those that define and identifies a Parliament", specified the magistrates of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber.

In this sense, the court has stressed that a Parliament "does not constitute a fixed place of business, nor does it fit into some of the common examples such as branches, agencies, offices, workshops, warehouses, stores, mines, quarries, oil wells, etc. oil and gas or any other place of extraction or exploitation of natural resources".

In line, the Supreme Court has stressed that in Parliaments "resides popular sovereignty represented by its members" who are "elected by universal suffrage" and "exercise their functions by representative mandate of the citizens of each Member State (...) of freely and independently, without any hint of dependency, labor or statutory or similar".

For the high court it is "obvious" that Mato's argument has no place and has described as "artificial" and forced to compare the European Parliament with a company abroad.

On the sidelines, the magistrates have indicated that the regime of MEPs with respect to workers and civil servants who provide their services in the European institutions is not comparable either, since MEPs have their own and differentiated regime.