This Monday, the Ministry of Labor proposed to employers a new tax aid for companies linked to the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage of 3.1% this year, up to 1,221 gross euros per month. The measure, which Yolanda Díaz’s department is agreeing with that of the Treasury, led by Vice President María Jesús Montero, tries to achieve the support of the CEOE and Cepyme employers’ associations for this new increase in the SMI, something that has only occurred one year, in 2020.
While waiting for the negotiation with the Treasury to be closed, Labor has explained that the tax aid would consist – in principle – of a bonus or some type of incentive in the Corporate Tax to the companies “most affected” by the increase in the minimum wage.
This “affect” of companies has not yet been clarified, although Labor has indicated that it can be aimed at those with more workers who earn the minimum wage and who are labor intensive.
The incentive, which Labor has not quantified either, would be conditional on two circumstances: that companies maintain employment and that they reduce in the future the amount of staff that receives the SMI, the lowest legal salary.
A tax incentive “to raise salaries”
“The message is not to continue paying the minimum wage,” said the Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, who specified that Labor and the Treasury are working to refine fiscal aid so that it does not encourage companies to remain in the SMI.
“We are interested in raising the minimum wage, in having a stimulus that can compensate for the increase in SMI this year, but that encourages progress in that salary scale” in the following years, explained Pérez Rey.
The representative of the CEOE employers’ association, Rosa Santos, as well as the union spokespersons, Javier Pacheco (CCOO) and Patricia Ruiz (UGT), have explained that the Ministry’s offer has been “verbal”, something that they have criticized for its lack of specificity.
Thus, the social agents have asked Labor for “the details” of the measure in order to evaluate it. It is expected that the finalization will take place in the coming days and that the parties will meet again next Thursday to try to reach a tripartite agreement.
The fiscal aid is conditional on the employers entering into the agreement to raise the SMI. Otherwise, public incentives for companies would decline. Yolanda Díaz’s ‘number two’ has argued that the initiative tries to “turn salary policy into a state matter”, also involving companies in this goal.
The CCOO and UGT unions have stressed that the measure, which would mean subsidizing salary increases to companies with public money, is not “comfortable” for their organizations. However, they have stated that they will analyze the initiative and that they will consider it in order to try to reach consensus in social dialogue on the increase in the SMI, which has not been achieved since 2020.
There will be no update of public contracts
The Government’s offer replaces another measure that Labor and the Treasury were negotiating in recent weeks: the possibility of updating public contracts already assigned to increases in the minimum wage. Constant demands from employers’ associations, as well as from unions, Labor had already been in favor of it, in the face of the refusal of the Treasury, and in the end it has not gone ahead.
Pérez Rey has maintained that this fiscal aid is “more ambitious” than the indexation of public contracts to the SMI, since it affects more sectors and not only those that bid with the Public Administration.
The Secretary of State for Labor has mentioned some examples of activities that could benefit from tax aid, such as “home help companies, dependency, cleaning, countryside, agriculture… Sectors that we need to stimulate so that their salaries are also high,” he maintained.
According to Labor sources this afternoon, this new tax incentive is the alternative that the Treasury has given to its request for deindexation of public contracts.
Minimum salary of 1,221 euros and without paying personal income tax
Labor debates in social dialogue an increase in the interprofessional minimum wage of 3.1% in 2026. This represents 37 euros more per month from the current 1,184 gross euros per month, to place the SMI at 1,221 gross euros per month in 14 payments.
The SMI will continue without paying personal income tax, as Labor had requested from the Treasury, for which the deduction approved last year will be updated.
The 2026 increase will be added to the accumulated increases of 61% since 2018, when Pedro Sánchez arrived at Moncloa. The coalition government has so far agreed on all the increases with the CCOO and UGT unions, and only one with the employers’ associations CEOE and Cepyme (at the beginning of 2020).
The figure of 3.1% proposed by Yolanda Díaz’s department was the lowest recommended by the committee of experts that advises the Ministry of Labor, for the scenario in which the SMI continued without paying personal income tax, as was finally agreed again for 2026, against the criteria of the unions.
Even if it is approved later, the Government will raise the SMI with retroactive effect from January 1, as it has done in previous years.
Source: www.eldiario.es
