We can ask for 10-year prison sentences for managers of large companies that pass on taxes to clients

He considers that this will prevent electricity companies and banks from transferring the impact of the new extraordinary tax to citizens

MADRID, 21 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

United We Can has sent the PSOE its proposal to create a new tax offense for electricity companies and financial entities that pass on tax increases to consumers, which includes penalties of up to ten years in prison for managers who incur in this practice.

Specifically, the formation stipulates a new article, 284 bis of the Penal Code, which stipulates a punishment of one to five years in prison, and a fine of 12 to 24 months, for the administrators of large service companies and essential goods. , which alter sales prices to customers to transfer the burden of tax changes that affect their economic activity.

Moreover, it includes an aggravating circumstance for the case of entities that operate in strategic sectors of the national economy and when the conduct "seriously" affects the general interest, which increases the prison sentence from two to ten years, as well as the economic fine. , which rises from two to five years.

As the parliamentary spokesman for United We Can, Pablo Echenique, has indicated to the media in Congress, his coalition partner already has his approach to create this new criminal type for the repercussion of taxes on clients, which expands the characteristics already included in the Criminal Code in relation to the criminal conduct of "artificial" price alteration.

The objective is to prevent electricity companies, banks or oil companies from deriving the fiscal impact of the extraordinary tax increase announced by the Government from their clients. Now it is in the hands of the PSOE to assess whether that proposal is included in the bill that will be registered in Congress.

The approach of the confederal group, to which Europa Press has had access, also includes the modification of article 288 of the Penal Code, which deploys economic sanctions to possible companies convicted of this practice.

Thus, it contemplates fines of double to four times the benefit obtained if the crime is committed by a natural person who is accused of a crime that has a prison sentence of more than two years. The sanction would be from double to triple the benefit obtained, favored or that could have been obtained, in the rest of the cases.

When the fine is from two to five years, the amount will be three to five times the profit obtained or that could have been achieved if the resulting amount were higher, when the crime committed by the natural person and the penalty is more than two years of imprisonment. For the rest of the cases, there will be sanctions from six months to two years, or from both to twice the benefit achieved.

The leader of Podemos and Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, advanced this request addressed to the PSOE, given that the Executive must show a "tough hand" with large corporations that want to pass on taxes to consumers.

"We would send the correct message that no type of attack or abuse of the general interest is going to be tolerated and that we are going to protect citizens, whatever the cost, in the most difficult times," he explained on Tuesday during the summer courses. from the Complutense University of Madrid.