SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 12 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, through the Treasury area, announces that “the consequences of the new Royal Decree (RD) that establishes the bases for calculating the unfair capital gains tax will mean for this capital to stop collecting around 50% for this concept, estimated at about 3 million euros “.
Along these lines, he anticipates that “in addition, it will require a duplication of administrative management and also have qualified personnel for such a task.”
In fact, the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, understands that “this matter affects all the municipalities of the Canary Islands, with different repercussions, ranging from 30 to 70% less in the collection for this tax”, and adds that “this supposes very bad news for the municipal coffers, precisely in a year in which income is falling due to the economic crisis derived from the pandemic, while extraordinary expenses have been faced to attend to the most vulnerable citizens and services above the competences as town halls “.
On the other hand, Bermúdez highlights that “at a time when Santa Cruz is betting on the reduction of taxes and fees, in order that SMEs, self-employed and families have more liquidity to spend in the city, this decree only comes to subtract “and suggests that” it should be the Government of the Canary Islands that should be in charge of the claims of the municipalities to have an alternative that alleviates this lower collection, to be able to continue providing the services to the citizens who demand more attention from us. in this difficult time where the City Council is the first door that is knocked. “
Juan José Martínez, for his part, points out “the new regulation of the capital gains tax supposes, in addition to the reduction in the income necessary to attend municipal services, an increase in the complexity of its management, both for taxpayers and for the administration itself. and the foreseeable increase in litigation with respect to this tax. “
In addition, he regrets that “this is the solution, quickly and quickly, adopted by the state government, when it has had plenty of time to do so and when there were other formulas that are more comfortable for the taxpayer and more efficient for the administration.”
This new regulation, he points out, “is going to bring with it the need to carry out contradictory assessments of the estimates that citizens make of the differences in buying and selling prices” and predicts that “just thinking about that already requires having a special device, with technical architects, among other personnel permanently carrying out this type of assessment “.
CLEAR TAXES
That supposes an added cost to the management, reason why it defends “some clear taxes on a taxable fact and that do not give rise to doubts neither of the administered one nor by part of the administration that manages it”.
Along these lines, he indicates that “it is true that although the previous regulation was unfair, it was about consolidated income that municipalities need to be able to maintain the level of public services provided to citizens” and is disappointed to see that ” there is no compensation whatsoever to the municipalities by the State, nor is it anticipated “, something that Santa Cruz denounces.
For this reason, “we have asked the Government of the Canary Islands, to the extent of its possibilities, to favor local financing for the next year and thus compensate for these collection losses”.
In this sense, the Councilor for Finance points out the possibility that “if a specific fund is not created for this purpose by the Canarian Executive, at least this situation could be favored by delaying the obligation to return negative income settlements of the REF from previous years “.
Juan José Martínez also reveals that “it would have been easier to recharge this tax in personal income tax, in the chapter on property transfers, which was very simple to carry out, with a coefficient that was destined directly to municipalities, which would be easy to manage and to collect, since the cadastral reference identifies each municipality “and yet” it has been chosen to maintain a figure with a royal decree that is only lengthening the agony of a tax figure that does not work.
