Montero affirms that the banking tax will be approved with an ordinary law and rules out prison sentences

MADRID, 26 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, has indicated this Tuesday that the bill that her department is preparing to approve the new banking tax will be processed as an ordinary law, and not organic, so that it rules out that they will be included prison sentences for non-compliance with the measure.

"I do not consider that the Penal Code is the appropriate place from which companies can be sanctioned for behavior that is not in accordance with the law", assured the head of the Treasury at the press conference after the Council of Ministers, asked by the statements of its government partner, United We Can, in which it asked to impose sentences of up to ten years in prison for managers of large companies that pass on the taxes to users.

In this sense, Montero has indicated that the law will be "basic, ordinary" and that any reform of the Penal Code "would require an organic law." "This is not the place where anything should be incorporated regarding this issue," he added.

What the Treasury will do is include a prohibition in the proposal to prevent entities from transferring the new tax to the end user. In addition, Montero has recalled that the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) already has mechanisms to sanction "when someone does not comply with the legislation or deviates from the rules of the market.

The Government anticipates that this week a bill will be presented to Congress for a new tax on the financial sector, which would be temporary and extraordinary, to raise 3,000 million euros in two years. This bill will therefore have parliamentary process and the parliamentary groups will be able to make their amendments to the text.

Montero has made it clear that the expected income from these two new taxes will already be included in the next Budgets: the tax on banks and energy companies.