Brass fittings and sequins

It always passes quickly and from one day to the next, like a flower that never summer and a tree that doesn't let you see the forest, but the state Treasury has once again made public this week the official list of major tax defaulters in the Kingdom of Spain. Eleven hundred and eleven individuals and four thousand seven hundred companies have in common that they owe more than 600,000 euros to the public coffers – and no, they are not precarious migrants in search of life, work, and future. They are few who owe a lot, for a total outstanding amount that rises to 15,364,000,000 euros. I haven't heard any statement from Foment del Treball regarding persistent fiscal absenteeism, but I stare magnetically at the figure, almost dazzled, absorbed in the eleven digits. Trying to think how this fortune, euro by euro, would translate into strengthening so many strained public services – schools, hospitals, or support for SMEs. However, it is all a mirage and a simulation. Because another figure, the real one, reminds us that the publication of the list is in vain. The other number leaves me roasted on the way to fried: Treasury inspectors report that, from the fiscal year 2025, only 220 million have been recovered. 1.4% of the total. A fiscal hell – for all of us – that doesn't even cover a drop in the ocean. Saying this this week, when the vast majority have noticed in their current accounts how public taxation went through the cash register – whether to return or to pay – serves to remind us that for a long time, we haven't all truly been with the Treasury. In smaller magnitudes, the nascent Tax Agency of Catalonia has made the same list public these days: 60 debtors with an outstanding amount of 184 million, headed by an unknown who owes 65 million. And one is left pondering the doubt of how on earth a debt of 65 million accumulates without anything happening before.I take for granted that the list's case studies are multiple –many stem from bankruptcies and creditor proceedings–, but beyond the nosiness for names and the haggling over some economies, in the altarpiece there are too many usual suspects, flagship companies of the real estate bubble and a few studio characters. The crucial issue is that non-payment is only one of the faces of a structural tax fraud –elusion, evasion, shell companies, false double residency, bonuses for large companies or investment funds– which amounts to 60,000 million euros annually. Wide-eyed people are turning again, trying to ground the hefty sum in an increasingly unequal and striking social reality. The unshakeable feeling that it's all one after another makes a hole. A black hole through which so many things escape.