Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of Spain’s main opposition People’s Party (PP), has promised to cut personal income tax from the first year of a future PP government.
He and staked his political future on the pledge, declaring he would resign as prime minister if Spaniards end up paying as much tax as they do under the current Socialist administration.
Speaking yesterday at a party event in Madrid timed to coincide with the opening of the 2025 income tax filing campaign, Feijóo launched a sustained attack on what he described as the “fiscal hell” imposed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government.
He argued that Spaniards are paying more in taxes than ever before while receiving poorer public services, and he directly linked the high tax burden to waste, inefficiency and alleged corruption.
In unusually blunt language, Feijóo told the audience that there is “margin” to reduce taxes and improve services “if superfluous spending is eliminated and nobody steals within the government”.
He listed areas where he said savings could be found: Government advertising and propaganda, benefits for those who could work but choose not to, spending on non-contributing migrants, loss-making public entities and what he called privileges granted to pro-independence parties.
“You pay and they take it away,” he said, contrasting the treatment of honest taxpayers with those allegedly protected by the government.
Feijóo went further, guaranteeing that “in what depends on me, Spaniards will not pay as many taxes as this year”.
“I guarantee it. And if I do not deliver, I will cease to be president of the government.”
He framed the promise as part of a broader commitment to restore purchasing power to families and businesses after what he called more than 100 tax rises since Sánchez took office in 2018.
Collection from personal income tax alone has risen by some 72 per cent in that period, he noted, yet wages, employment and public services have not kept pace.
Among the specific measures he outlined were deflating the personal income tax brackets to protect salaries from inflation, offering tax relief to young workers for their first four years in employment, incentives for home purchases. To this he added measures to encourage births, exempting self-employed workers earning less than €85,000 a year from VAT and refusing to reimpose inheritance and gift taxes in any region.
He also called on the current government to reduce VAT to 5 per cent on basic foodstuffs such as meat, fish and tinned goods if tensions in the Middle East continue to drive up prices over the coming fortnight.
The sharp remarks come amid a wider opposition campaign from both the PP and the right-wing Vox Party portraying the Socialist led Sánchez administration as one that squeezes ordinary citizens while tolerating waste and graft.
Feijóo accused the executive of using taxation to mask political weakness and to reward allies, declaring that under a PP government “the plunder and the lies will end”.
In a separate development on the same day that further illustrates the scale of corruption allegations surrounding the Socialist-led government, Vox submitted a formal dossier to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Jorge Buxadé, head of Vox’s delegation in the European Parliament, transmitted the document to OLAF, while deputy Pablo Sáez presented it to the OECD.
The party is pressing European institutions to investigate possible losses of European Union funds linked to corrupt networks and to secure the recovery of any money diverted through what it describes as mafia-style operations.
Spain’s Council of Ministers has approved a royal decree mandating universal access to public healthcare for all foreign nationals residing in the country, even those without legal status. https://t.co/4uSefOgbOS
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) March 11, 2026
