Those affected by this problem of double taxation are, at the moment, around thirty Catalan health workers who live on the French side, a few kilometers from the border. They have Spanish nationality but their tax domicile is in France, where housing and school are cheaper, and since the hospital was inaugurated they have filed their income tax returns in the Gallic country. In October 2023, however, they began to receive alarming notifications from the Treasury: they were demanding a 19% tax for the 2020 financial year, with a penalty for non-payment, as non-residents who receive public remuneration. All the workers responded with allegations, sending documentation of the fees paid to France, but the Spanish tax agency dismissed them and continues to demand money from them. The first workers who received the request have already had to pay the fines, which range from 3,000 to 20,000 euros, under threat of embargo of payroll and property. These amounts of money have drowned the finances of many families in the hospital, and moreover they all fear that soon, taking into account this 4-year delay, which is when the sanctions expire, they will demand the same percentage of the salary, but of the ‘year 2021. And so on.
Embargo threat: “They put fear in our bodies”
“When I received the letter I thought calmly that it was a mistake, I replied by presenting the papers from the hospital and the Revenue, but to everyone’s surprise they told me that I had to pay or “They embargoed,” explains Dr. Maite Angulo, one of the first affected. And he adds: “If there is a problem, in any case, they should request it from the hospital, which is the one that makes the detentions, but they persecute us individually because it’s easier for them, and that’s how they put fear in our bodies and with a year they can collect everything they want”.
Another one of those affected is Sònia Rodríguez, an operating room nurse, who lives in Tor de Carol, who has been paying tribute to France since 2009 and who, until February 2024, when she received the first letter, had never had any problems. “We live in France, but we don’t work in Bellvitge, but in a pioneering binational hospital, with a very special case history”, defends Rodríguez, who continues: “We already pay taxes in France and if you add the 19% they ask for, more interest, we lose almost half of our salary. There are colleagues who have had to ask for a loan, it’s embarrassing”. Roser Bel, also an operating room nurse, who lives just one kilometer from the border, adds: “It’s a blatant mistake, they should have warned us, because it affects the mental health of many workers.” As far as the French Treasury is concerned, there is no claim in the opposite direction, since everything is more expensive in Cerdanya and there is no cross-border hospital worker who has French nationality and lives in the Catalan part.
Claims and international mediation
In order to try to win the pulse of the Spanish Treasury, the first affected doctors hired a lawyer specializing in tax matters on their own, who has already lodged a claim with the Economic and Financial Court, pending resolution. The management of the Cerdanya Hospital has offered legal support to the others affected who had not hired a lawyer and have drawn up a joint strategy.
However, despite the claims, the Treasury maintains its position claiming that the 19% pending collection is not a withholding tax, which is what workers already pay in France, but the tax which, according to the law, applies to any natural person who does not reside in Spain but receives remuneration from a public entity. The lawyers of those affected, on the other hand, consider that the Cerdanya Hospital is excluded from this rule due to its absolutely unique situation, given that, as indicated by the double taxation treaties of the European Union, professionals are already taxed in one of the two countries that finance the cross-border centre. With these arguments, the workers are demanding mediation between the Spanish and French tax authorities so that they can come to an agreement and resolve the grievance of double taxation.
The Generalitat promises a “principle of agreement” in the celebration of the 10 years
The workers’ angriest complaints coincided precisely with the celebration of the hospital’s tenth anniversary: ”Now everything is words of praise and the politicians talk about the hospital as the jewel in the crown of a cross-border project, but the the truth is that things have not been done well, international taxation was not foreseen and we workers have been harmed”, says Dr. Angulo, who reiterates: “It makes all the sense in the world that the borders of Europe not be an impediment and the French neighbors can come to the hospital and not have to go all the way to Prada, but, when it comes to the truth, everything is a problem.” Doctors and health personnel complain that, in addition to income problems, the cross-border situation of the hospital also causes many inconveniences in the cases of births and deaths of French citizens, who even if it is a few kilometers from home they have to make a lots of paperwork with consulates to repatriate the dead and babies.
However, coinciding with the celebration of the hospital’s 10th anniversary, on Friday 8 November the Minister of Health of the Generalitat, Olga Pané, visited the Puigcerdà facilities. During his visit, the mayor of the municipality, Jordi Gassió – who is a traumatologist and is one of those affected – conveyed to the department the seriousness of the situation. Then, in statements to the media, Pané wanted to make it clear that in the face of this problem a “principle of agreement” had been reached between the Catalan and Spanish governments to eliminate the double taxation of hospital workers and return the fines. However, although the hospital management acknowledges that work is being done in this direction, they have no record of this from the Treasury and the workers have not received any official communication in this regard. “This is politics and television, the reality is that we continue to tremble because the 2021 card may still fall,” concludes Angulo.
