Briefing
The Spanish tax authority Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria has published its updated statistics for the “Estadística de los declarantes del Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio” for the 2024 tax year. The key finding: 1,023 individuals declared assets worth more than €30 million in 2024, compared with 471 people in 2013. A total of 227,424 taxpayers filed a wealth tax return, down from 228,575 in 2023. Reported assets totalled around €986,985 million, putting the average declared value per filer at about €4.07 million (up 6.4 per cent on 2023).
The AEAT time series shows a general rise in the number of very large fortunes since 2013: 471 (2013), 508 (2014), 549 (2015), 579 (2016), 611 (2017), a slight fall to 608 (2018), followed by a rise to 701 (2019), 724 (2020), 831 (2021), 852 (2022) and 865 (2023), before reaching a new high in 2024. The statistics are based on returns; the main form is Model 714, supplemented since 2022 by information from Model 718 for the temporary solidarity measure for very large fortunes.
Very large fortunes are concentrated regionally in the Community of Madrid; other Autonomous Communities show different profiles in terms of asset types and tax revenue. The AEAT stresses methodological continuity in the asset tables, which is central to making the time series comparable. However, the aggregated tables do not support reliable conclusions about changes in individual behaviour, such as changes of residence to avoid tax; this would require analysis of microdata.
Economically, the contrasting trends of slightly fewer returns and rising declared assets suggest valuation gains, particularly in movable assets such as shares and fund units. Politically, the new figures are likely to fuel debate about the design of wealth tax and how regional tax autonomy should be balanced with state equalisation mechanisms. Larger concentrations of wealth place greater demands on the tax administration in terms of audits, valuation and enforcement.
Editor: Daniel Mayer (Article created with AI assistance).