Vox pledges zero income tax up to €22,000 with new simulator

Vox pledges zero income tax up to €22,000 with new simulator

A user opens the calculator posted on the party's website, enters their gross salary, and sees the result: almost 1,000 euros net more per month. The tool, presented as a simulator of what would happen if Vox governed, has become one of the most shared political artifacts online. The proposal is simple to state but hard to swallow: IRPF at 0% up to 22,000 euros, 15% up to 70,000, and 25% above that, with four points less per child. The calculator does not explain where the 50 billion euros would come from, which several participants say is the cost of the deficit. That is where the enthusiasm breaks.

What exactly does the Vox simulator propose?

The fiscal proposal circulating on social media boils down to three IRPF brackets, lowering VAT from 21% to 18%, and eliminating the wealth tax. With these figures, an employee currently paying over 30% in taxes would see a notable increase in their paycheck. Some calculate it would go from about 1,480 to 1,714 euros net, 232 more per month, without touching overtime or supplements. Others speak of four-digit monthly savings. The tool allows you to enter annual gross pay and returns the result in seconds.

The appeal is evident for any wage earner. So is the uncomfortable question: if the State stops collecting that amount, what gets cut? The simulator does not answer it. The most repeated criticism is not that the measure is bad for the wallet, but that it is impossible to finance without dismantling much of current public spending.

Where would the missing 50 billion come from?

Here begins the festival of ideas. One school argues that it suffices to eliminate administrative duplications, ministries considered dispensable, and subsidies to organizations. Another points to spending on cooperation, international aid, and projects abroad. The figure cited for the third sector is stark: 21 billion euros annually, 1.32% of GDP, with 546,044 salaried people, eight out of ten women. Cutting there is not free.

Those defending the plan's viability resort to the Laffer curve and the consumption effect. The argument is that money the State no longer collects returns via VAT and economic activity. Skeptics respond that this return is slow, uncertain, and does not cover the hole in the first year. The full calculation, broken down item by item, shows a difference that surprises those who do it with paper and pencil.

The European hurdle nobody mentions during campaigns

The most uncomfortable part of the plan is not in IRPF, but in excise duties. The European energy taxation directive sets minimums that Spain cannot bypass by decree. For automotive diesel, the community minimum is 330 euros per 1,000 liters, 33 cents per liter. Spain applies between 38 and 40 cents, so the real margin to lower is five to seven cents, not the whole tax. There is more room in electricity, because the European minimum is one euro per megawatt hour for domestic use.

Changing energy taxation requires unanimity among the Twenty-Seven in Brussels. Non-compliance implies a fine. Those who promise to eliminate the diesel tax without mentioning this detail are selling smoke, and not precisely the kind that comes out of the exhaust pipe.

The fine print the simulator doesn't calculate

The simulator measures what you earn, not what you stop receiving. If the public spending cut is executed, the first affected are public employees with frozen salaries, benefit recipients, and staff of subsidized organizations. Internal consumption would fall. The question nobody answers is how much of that money returns via spending and how much gets lost along the way.

There is a detail that appears in the most honest calculations: those earning the minimum wage, 17,094 euros gross annually, would stay the same. Neither gain nor lose. The benefit concentrates in middle and high incomes, which feel the bracket reduction most. For someone earning around 1,000 euros, the fiscal party is theoretical.

Why the measure has gone viral on social networks

The calculator works as a political argument because it turns an abstract promise into a concrete number in the bank account. That is unbeatable in a campaign. Parties promising sacrifices and adjustments find it hard to compete with those promising to give money back. Virality does not measure viability; it measures desire.

The underlying problem is that the measure rests on a premise nobody has proven: that there exists 50 billion euros of dispensable spending without consequences. Those who claim it should show the list. Those who deny it should explain why the current tax system is untouchable. The entire debate moves between these two positions, and neither has won.

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With these numbers on the table, the question is no longer whether the measure is liked. It is liked. The question is whether anyone can pay for it without it being felt elsewhere. And that answer is not in the simulator.