A taxation of dogs

Extremadura has approved a 30% tax deduction for veterinary expenses arising from pet health problems. The discount will be up to a maximum of €100 and will cost the community six million euros out of a budget exceeding €8,000. From a fiscal point of view, trained dogs, cats, and fleas in Extremadura are already part of the family. The government of Popular Party leader María Guardiola anticipates what will eventually happen throughout Spain. The paradox is obvious: personal health insurance, which eases the pressure on the collapsed healthcare system, is not deductible. However, we are now opening the door to making indigestion in dogs and cats deductible. We think it's a perfectly coherent measure. A country of dogs demands a tax system for dogs.

During the difficult years of the independence process, it's quite likely that this decision would have been viewed by nationalists as an affront. The tax incentive for pet owners (they don't want to be called that; they're now parents of four-legged "children") wouldn't have been overlooked. The grievance would have been expressed, more or less, in these terms: thanks to the tax plunder, Extremaduran pets will receive better care, better health, and will live longer than their Catalan counterparts. Not having our resources at the expense of our animals' lives!

The framework of confrontation has gone from Spain stealing from us to Madrid stealing from us.

This would have been the case in the era of broad brushes. Now, with the Generalitat governed by the Socialists and Salvador Illa struggling, at the request of ERC, to obtain results in finding unique financing that is not unique to Catalonia, it is appropriate to use a broad brush. There is no need to violate or confront anyone. A federal Spain demands fraternity and respect for each other's decisions. This approach, essential for Illa's optimistic plan to convince the rest of the regional governments of the merits of financing agreed upon first between the government and the Generalitat, to have any chance of success, admits only one exception: Madrid. Hence, the new framework of confrontation being pushed by Catalan socialism, fortunately in a more civilized and less demagogic manner than the one we express here, takes on a new form: from Spain robbing us (Catalans) to Madrid—under Ayuso—robbing us (all Spaniards).

The economic benefits Madrid accrues as the capital of Spain are compounded by the dishonest, unsupportive, and selfish fiscal policy of the Ayuso government, the official Socialist argument goes. This confrontation has a high political value. On the one hand, it diverts attention from the serious underlying difficulties posed by the fiscal model promised to ERC (not only on key issues such as ordinality). On the other, it emphasizes what the PSOE and PSC can easily agree on: greed isn't Catalan, it's Madrid. Since socialism is at its core in Madrid, they risk nothing by adopting this line of reasoning.

The fight with Ayuso's Madrid, which Illa has sought from day one in economic and fiscal policy, brings another benefit to the PSC. It eliminates the possibility that a debate will ever open among Catalans in Catalonia about the fiscal suffocation their own government (this one and previous ones) is propping up on them. Due to the opposition's non-appearance, the demands of parliamentary arithmetic, and the winning rhetoric of the left—and the far left—during the years of the independence process, Catalonia must be the only place in the world where there isn't even the slightest discussion about the reasonableness of the tax burden imposed by its closest government. Shining a bright spotlight on Madrid's tax system ensures that this remains the case. After all, if we pay too much, it's always someone else's fault. And we can eat partridges and sleep happily ever after. A most convenient resignation. Not for the citizens, but for our leaders.

But let's get to the point: if you have to be reincarnated as a pet, ask to be born in Mérida, Cáceres, or Badajoz. Or anywhere in the Basque Country. Even if, for whatever reason, no one ever talks about the Basques. Wow, wow.