The president of ATA, Lorenzo Amor, has insisted that "the true national priority of this country is the self-employed". In this regard, he has underlined that without them "and without them doing reasonably well", "this country does not function", recalling that Spain is not Germany, Belgium or Switzerland, but a territory where small businesses and self-employed workers with one or two employees predominate and where, in the case of Extremadura, this reality is accentuated even more compared to communities in the north.
Amor made these statements during the closing of the ATA Extremadura Elections Assembly, an event at which Candelaria Carrera was re-elected as president of the organization in the community. The new regional board of directors also includes Raquel de Prado as general secretary, Margarita Garrido as treasurer, and Juan Manuel Hernández, Manuel Pérez, and Miguel Ángel Martín as members.
During his speech, Amor stated that the self-employed are experiencing "a fiscal hell" and that every day they face "more procedures, more obstacles, more bureaucracy, more obligations". He has denounced that, on average, it costs them 2,500 euros annually to comply with these procedures and has lamented that Spain is the "only" country in the European Union that does not have a simplified VAT for those who invoice less than 85,000 euros.
As a consequence, he has pointed out that self-employed workers in Spain are "third-class citizens" compared to their French or Portuguese counterparts, who only file one VAT return per year, which, as he indicated, would allow them to save around 600 euros annually.
Likewise, he has denounced that they are "suffering harassment" from the Tax Agency due to the level of inspections and checks, which keeps them "anxious". "Always putting us in the spotlight as if we were fraudsters", he lamented, adding that "those who defraud are elsewhere". Faced with this situation, he has defended the need to continue advancing in work-life balance, the elimination of obstacles, a "friendly" fiscal policy, and the improvement of training and prevention in digital risks.
On the regional level, Amor has mentioned the Extremaduran self-employment plan, in force until 2027, before which, he said, "we have to get our act together" with the regional Government and start working "so that this locomotive that Extremadura is right now in the growth of the self-employed does not stop," with almost three new registrations daily, excluding holidays.
On the other hand, the president of the Junta de Extremadura, María Guardiola, has questioned the increase in contributions for the self-employed approved by the central Government and the tax hikes, while calling for the VAT system to be modified to prevent them from having to pay for invoices not yet collected.
"While in the regional government we are lowering contributions, the Government of Spain is raising them and raising taxes, and it is always the most fragile who pay, those self-employed in rural areas, those women who are keeping a business afloat in a small town, people who have been paying contributions all their lives," she pointed out. She also insisted that it should have been resolved "a long time ago" that each self-employed person pays VAT on invoices that they "often haven't even" collected.
Guardiola has congratulated Carrera on her re-election at the head of ATA Extremadura and has recognized the career of Lorenzo Amor. She also recalled that last October she received the award given by the association for having the best support plan for the self-employed and that she already stated then that it had "many hands and many voices."
CANDELARIA CARRERA
The newly re-elected president of ATA Extremadura, the only candidate in the process, has reviewed both the progress made by the entity and the "permanent succession" since March 2020 of changes, crises, and transformations that "have undoubtedly put the resilience of this group to the test."
On the "positive" side, she highlighted that the self-employed "endure" and that in Extremadura the group continues to grow, with 81,307 registered in the RETA, 640 more than in April 2025. She attributed this increase to the endurance and resilience of "increasingly professionalized" professionals, to the pace of Spain's economic expansion, and to the measures promoted in the community. She assured that ATA has contributed in these four years to improving the situation of the self-employed by conveying their demands to the regional administration, which has "taken up the challenge."
Thanks to it, he explained, they have been able to work "side by side" to make initiatives such as the zero tariff, among others, a reality. However, he considers that in Extremadura there is still "plenty of room for improvement" for the self-employed to carry out their activities in better conditions. Therefore, the board of directors of ATA Extremadura will focus its efforts on supporting businesses so that they are "more resilient, more competitive, and with greater capacity to adapt to all these constant changes", which implies continuing to demand "decent" infrastructure and communications.