One of the items on the agenda at the extraordinary council meetings held this morning was the introduction of a new tax which, in principle, will become compulsory on 10 April 2025, and which the current governing team wants to bring forward by a year.
This is the rubbish tax, which cannot be included within the IBI property tax, as set out in article 11 of Law 7/2022 of 8 April, under which it will be compulsory to introduce payment systems based on the amount of waste generated by taxpayers.
The proposal, already included initially in the draft municipal budget for 2024 and which the government will try to approve tomorrow in the council meeting, despite the initial lack of consensus and of a majority to get it through, is to introduce a tax that would raise 1,300,000 euros at a rate of around €100 per year per home, with no reduction in the IBI property tax this year to soften the impact of this new burden on residents’ pockets, and without taking into account the differences in the amount of rubbish generated by a holiday home, a large family home, a restaurant or a supermarket.
A tax that will not improve services for residents
Under the principle of «the polluter pays», the amount of the charge will take into account the volume of waste generated and will go towards paying for the municipal solid waste treatment centre, run by the Mancomunidad (association of municipalities), but the service will not be improved in any way: there will be no increase in staff to improve cleaning services, nor will it help improve the appearance of the housing developments.
Outright rejection from the opposition
PSOE, Compromiso and VOX made known in today’s two council meetings their outright rejection of the proposal to bring this tax forward voluntarily. By 9 votes in favour and 8 against, it was approved to use the maximum time limit permitted by law before starting to collect it, to provide a parallel financial compensation in the IBI property tax, and to look for ways of introducing it that could be better adjusted to the nature of the waste generated.
