Oxfam’s latest report points out that, in addition to the loss of incomes suffered by employees in increasing inequalities following the great recession, the tax behaviour of large companies has also been fundamental. Taxation being the main tool for blurring inequalities, the tax contribution of companies is increasingly low. In 2016, the Corporation Tax collected half of 2007 in cash in the Spanish State, also in the peninsular Basque Country. In Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa the Corporation Tax stood at 14.5% of the proceeds agreed in 2007, but in 2016 that percentage decreased to 8.2%.

As the liberal agenda is strengthened in Western official economic policies, tax relief on capital owners is taking place. For this purpose, two ways are usually used, the lowering of the profit rate and the extension of the deductions. In the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the average rate of this tax was 32.2% at the beginning of the century and 24.7% in 2016. The downturn does not stop, so in early December, the U.S. Senate passed the toughest fiscal reform of the last three decades. The most important measure has been to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, according to the OECD. First political victory of Donald Trump's economic orthodoxy. In France, the Emmanuel Macron Government is in the process of adopting a number of liberal measures, including the reduction of the rate of 33.3% in corporate tax at 25%.

In this context it is necessary to understand the sharp drop in the Corporation Tax agreed by the Government of Vitoria with the support of the PP for Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. The agreement provides for a reduction in the tax rate from 28% to 24% for small and medium-sized enterprises over the next two years (the current rate will be reduced from 24% to 20%). The parties have used Confesbask’s arguments to legitimise the measure, according to EH Bildu. This would mean an increase in investment and therefore in job creation. That is the main argument and it is not valid. And that is, the empirical evidence of a long time ago has put the equation of profits, investment and employment in suspense. For example, data from the last crisis have shown that, despite the increase in corporate profits, productive investment is in a stationary situation, even in our own. A speculative and very ephemeral investment that as profits grow its investment in financial markets has increased. And that doesn't generate employment significantly.

Moreover, most of the scarce capital that has been incorporated into productive enterprises has not been devoted to job creation, but to the payment of debts and to the improvement of production and innovation systems which, at best, do not generate employment. The modest expansion in employment that has taken place in recent times has been largely due to the fragmentation and conversion of fixed and total employment into precarious employment.

On the other hand, it has also been heard as an argument that the fall in the corporate tax rate to attract foreign investment is good. This criterion applies to tax havens such as Ireland or Luxembourg, but to this end the rate should fall to 6.25%. If this were the objective of the Basque productive strategy, industry 4.0 would be negligible. However, numerous studies show that tax relief is far behind as a localisation factor for transnational companies.

This fiscal decline seriously jeopardises the level and quality of social services and public training and therefore reinforces the tendency to increase socio-economic inequalities.