OT: Spanish fee-free banking?

I couple of years ago we checked four ES banks - none offered what we in the UK regard as free banking.

We ended up using BankInter and La Caixa.

Oh, that's disappointing to hear...but thanks for your input.

Unless Spain is different to the rest of the EU, you will also find "witholding tax" appearing on your statement. This is an amusing idea that because you are not spending your money you are in some way depriving people of income so the state will tax your "savings" even when those "savings" consist simply of money allowed to accrue in a current account.

Is that in addition to or in replacement of our taxation on interest? If the former, that's utterly outrageous (at least if the amounts are "insignificant" to the nation)!

In addition to, interest is "income" subject to taxation. Witholding tax is an extra tax supposedly to stop people "hoarding" or "saving" as we call it.

I've not had a bank account in Spain so I'm not sure if they apply the same tax, or even if they do what it would be called. However I have banked in Germany, Italy and France where they apply the tax.

No, it's a withholding tax. You can get it back (or possibly not deducted in the first place) if you have the correct tax documents in place. That's how a withholding tax works. It's paid instead of your tax bill if you're one of the many who 'can't be bothered', but if you do your other tax right you don't have to pay it.

tim