Taking into consideration the powers and capacities the Economic Agreement confers to the competent institutions of the Basque Country, the main classification of taxes is the one which distinguishes between “Agreed taxes subject to autonomous legislation” and “Agreed taxes subject to common legislation”.
In the first group, we can find the taxes concerning which the Historical Territories have legislative capacity in order to design the main elements, which determine the tax burden derived from them. The Economic Agreement classifies all direct taxation figures (except for the Tax on Income of non-residents,Tax on Gas, Oil and Condensate Extraction, the Tax on Deposits in Credit Institutions and the three taxes levying on certain activities of the electric sector: Tax on the Value of Electricity Generation, Tax on Spent Nuclear Fuel Generation and Radioactive Waste from Nuclear Electric Power Generation and Tax on the Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Radioactive Waste at Centralised Installations), the local taxes and some indirect taxation figures, i.e. Transfer Tax and Stamp Duties, in the group “Agreed taxes subject to autonomous legislation” whereas the rest of the tax figures are included in the group “Agreed taxes subject to common legislation”.
In relation to the tax figures in the first group, the general rule is that the Historical Territories have full capacity for their establishment and regulation, although, concerning some tax figures, some limitations, when regulating certain elements of the tax figures, are imposed by the Economic Agreement. In relation to the tax figures in the second group, the general rule is the absence of capacity to legislate, being the Common Territory legislation the applicable one. The Basque institutions have only regulation capacity to set certain formal aspects of these tax figures (filing and payment forms and payment deadlines) and, in a few cases, certain limited regulation capacity.
Finally, the Economic Agreement also lays down the criteria to determine which administration is the competent for the taxpayers to comply with their obligations to provide tax information.
