Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, PSOE’s presidential candidate in the general elections has praised the government for introducing a new law on capital gains tax although he says that he would take the law even further.
Speaking at a socialist rally in Calatonia yesterday Rubalcaba defended his plans to introduce a new ‘wealth tax’ or tax profits made by banks in order to embark on a new job creation scheme and pay for training and education. He said that with the new capital gains tax approved by the government last Friday 160,000 Spaniards would have to pay more taxes and refuted claims by his critics that the new law would affect Spain’s middle classes. In direct contrast to Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the PP, Rubalcaba said that he was not worried about the effect that the new tax would have on the rich because they would still be rich after paying their taxes’. Instead Rubalcaba asked the leader of the PP to worry about the 300,000 young people who could benefit from the money raised from this new tax on the rich.

He said that he believed that this was the number of young people who gain a training contract paid for by the estiamted 1,100 million euros the government raised from the new capital gains tax. Rubalcaba also said that the money raised from taxing the rich could be used to pay for 25,000 more teachers or be used to avoid hospital closures, the closure of surgical units or other health services in general. He also stated that the money raised from this tax would be available next year for the winner of the next general election due to be held on 20th November. Rubalcaba also said that he would like to introduce a tax on the profits made by banks.