El eterno debate sobre la calificación de impuesto directo o indirecto en los gravámenes sobre productos energéticos: STS de 13 de junio de 2025, rec. núm. 3134/2023

Abstract

Extrafiscal taxation has gained significant prominence in recent decades. Only a limited number of taxes can be considered genuinely extrafiscal, which often results in their failure to comply with constitutional postulates and with European Union law. In practice, very few extrafiscal taxes are effectively designed to deter the behaviors they are intended to regulate in order to safeguard protected interests, thereby turning into instruments of administrative interventionism. In Spain, particularly in the electricity sector, the authorities have opted for the widespread introduction of so-called extrafiscal taxes, through the indiscriminate creation of «apparently environmental» levies. Although formally characterized as direct taxes, their objectives are unmistakably indirect, which raises serious concerns regarding their potential incompatibility with European Union law.