Spanish municipalities speak out against new waste tax Pedro Sanchezwhich must be applied before April 2025. However, the chaos in the application of this tax, as well as the lack of legal development on the part of the Government, suggests a wave of resources. From the Spanish Federation of Municipalities (FEMP) is warned that even if the legality of this measure waste, Many Spaniards will have to face this cost, which in some municipalities has climbed up to 80%.
The requirement that it be a differentiated tax, that is to say that it cannot be included in other taxes, opens up a situation of legal uncertainty for many municipalities. For example, the municipalities of the metropolitan area of Barcelona They don’t have this tax and they have doubts about how they should create it from scratch; In the Catalan capital, you pay according to water consumption; while in Madrid the garbage rate is included in the Property tax (IBI).
“Neighbors will pay more while the legality of this fee is called into question,” they warn of the FEMP, which assures that it is a generalized rate that those responsible themselves question. Local administration and, furthermore, it will cause an avalanche of resources. Thus, the Federation emphasizes that the Government, with the imposition of the garbage tariff, brings an important change in terms of the design of local tariffs in the Local Treasury Regulatory Law, since, as can be deduced from its article 20.1, the Tariffs are a voluntary tax for local entities. However, Sánchez’s waste tax establishes for the first time the obligation for municipalities to have a tax for the services they must provide in relation to waste within their jurisdiction.
The Spanish Federation of Municipalities is not the only one to raise its voice. The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martinez-Almeidawas one of the most critical. “The municipalities will undergo a Sanchazobecause it is a Sanchazo in the form of assessment. It is not true that the garbage rate comes from community regulations, it comes from the law approved by the government of Pedro Sánchez”, added the first mayor. In this sense, Almeida assured that This price was established “without dialogue or consensus” with town hallswhich generates “notable legal uncertainty because it is not defined in state legislation.”
In this line, the Federation of Municipalities of Madrid (FMM) published a manifesto in which he asks the Spanish government that its application is not obligatory. He considers that this imposition undermines the “autonomy of municipalities” and also comes at an economic time that is not the most appropriate. This is why they ask the Executive to return to the “optional nature” of the rate, so that it is the municipalities themselves who decide to implement it or to pass on the cost of waste management to others taxes or municipal budget items. , as they have already made some consistories.
Distorts European regulations
The starting point was Directive 2008/98/EC which sets ambitious targets for the reduction, reuse and recycling of municipal waste and obliges Member States to take different measures, listing different economic instruments, including fees and payment schemes for waste production. To comply with this regulation, the Government approved the Law 7/2022of April 8, on waste and contaminated soil for a circular economy, which introduced the obligation for local authorities to establish, within three years, a fee for the collection, transport and treatment service waste.
However, as he himself admitted Cash In a report, this European regulation did not oblige municipalities to impose this trash tariff. “The literal of article 11.3 of Law 7/2022 establishes that the rate allows the implementation of payment systems by generation. SO, The rule does not impose the exhaustive obligation to demand a completely individualized rate for each taxable person from April 10, 2025but the intention is that these systems are gradually integrated, in accordance with the principle of waste hierarchy and the polluter pays which presides over said regulation”, we read in the document sent by the organization. Maria Jesus Monteroin which he explained the relevant issues related to the establishment and management of this rate.
In other words, while the European Union refers to the imposition of fees on waste producers based on the actual quantity they generate, with the aim of reducing mixed waste according to the principle of who pollutes paysSánchez distorts regulations to impose an individualized tax, as well as demands that municipalities reuse 55% of collected waste and separate 77% of plastic bottles from the rest of the waste.
