Congress rejected, for the second time in a row, the government’s stability objectives to prepare the general state budgets for 2026. On the other hand, it approved the postponement of the entry into force of Verifactu, the new invoicing system for SMEs and the self-employed, to January 1, 2027.
Vice President María Jesús Montero defended the “very important financial support” that the rejected deficit path implied (2.1% of GDP in 2026, 1.8% in 2027 and 1.6% in 2028), which allowed the autonomous communities a gap of 0.1% during the three years, which allowed a greater margin of spending for the regions worth 5.5 billion euros.
Thursday’s debate resembled a “déjà vu”, since the same arguments were repeated as two weeks ago, when the Lower House examined for the first time the stability objectives of the Executive.
“This deficit trajectory will represent very important financial support for local communities, local entities and, ultimately, for the public services which guarantee the welfare state,” declared the government’s “number two”.
The Executive assured that reversing this path – which had votes against PP, Vox, Junts and UPN and abstentions from Podemos and Compromís – would not block the preparation of the Public Accounts. But this creates a legal vacuum regarding the tax rules to apply. Indeed, the budgetary stability law only establishes that the objectives must be voted on twice, but does not explain what happens if they are rejected twice.
In the government, they maintain that the decline of this agreement by the Council of Ministers cannot deprive it of its budgetary capacity nor of the obligation to respect the commitments made with the European Commission. Thus, without objectives in force, it could report with what was agreed with Brussels in the Medium-Term Structural Fiscal Plan at the end of last year. These are the red figures that mark the path: 2.1% in 2026, 1.8% in 2027 and 1.6% in 2028. And as a distribution by subsectors has not been agreed, the Treasury emphasizes that it is the Magna Carta which takes precedence, forcing the autonomous communities to budget in balance.
However, Junts has already warned that the rejection of the objectives is accompanied by that of the Public Accounts. “Neither the objectives of today, nor the budgets of tomorrow,” declared neo-convergent MP Josep Maria Cruset.
Verifactu, postponed to January 2027
On the other hand, the Government also obtained approval from Congress for the Royal Decree-Law approved last week to allow local entities and autonomous communities to invest the 2024 surplus in financially sustainable investments. In this rule, the Executive has included the postponement of the entry into force of Verifactu, as the new regulation of invoicing systems developed by the Tax Agency is commonly called, until January 1, 2027 for SMEs and until July 1 of the same year for the self-employed.
The new obligation involves adapting the invoicing software – in the case of those who do not make invoices by hand or with word processors like Word or Excel – to generate files with a sort of “digital fingerprint” to avoid alterations, and include in each of them a QR code through which we can access a series of tax data linked to the issuing company.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced at the beginning of the month that the Council of Ministers would approve a royal decree-law with several commitments awaiting fulfillment with Junts. Among them, the delay of this obligation, which had been demanded by the Catalan employers’ associations.
About The Author
