The Association of Marinas and Nautical Installations of the Balearic Islands (ANADE) together with the rest of the nautical sector requests the central government to rectify the increase by over 100% of the so called lighthouse tax, known also as T0, which "is very damaging to the concessionaires and the boat owners as this measure has been adopted as a Royal Decree without consulting the operators in the sector", they complain.
Apart from ANADE, which represents the recreational marinas in the Balearics, other associations have joined this petition, for example AEGY (The Spanish Super Yacht Association), ANAVRE (The Recreational Boaters Association), CME (The Spanish Maritime Cluster), ANEN (The Spanish Marine Trade Association), FEAPDT (The Spanish Federation of Associations of Tourist Marinas), ACNB (The Association of Yacht Clubs in the Balearic Islands), AENIB (The Association of Marine Trade in the Balearic Islands), FENIB (The Federation of Marine Trade in the Balearic Islands), CEACNA (The Spanish Confederation of Associations of Yachts Clubs) and ACNCC (The Association of Yacht Clubs in the Community of Valencia).
In their statement, ANADE confirms that all the signing entities have demanded for years the elimination of the tax T0, previously known as the lighthouse tax, for "lacking justification", as in the modern tourist and recreational yachting the coastal lighthouses are not used anymore.
Despite this, as they explain in the statement, " the central government has collected this tax for years, leading to an increase of the mooring prices and causing a negative effect on the competitiveness of the Spanish nautical tourism".
The Royal Decree tightens up further the nautical taxation, adding into the T0 the concept of "control and support of the coastal maritime traffic", which means that a tax that up until now was meaningless, now helps to finance the loss-making Maritime Rescue Service and Sea Security.
Request of dialog
The tourist ports and the sailors don´t understand how "a decision of this magnitude could have been made without even looking for alternatives or asking for the opinion of the users and the port concessionaires".
The T0 is a tax that owners of recreational vessels are obliged to pay in conjunction of mooring fees.
According to ANADE, during the validity of the tax since 2004, this system of tax collecting has caused numerous problems between the port authorities, the marinas and yachts clubs, and the users.
Therefore "it is surprising that the central government, while aware of this situation, not only hasn´t tried to solve this problem, but has decided to increase this tax completely disproportionately from 4 € per square meter in 2012 to 9,12 € per square meter in 2014", states ANADE.
No comments:
Post a Comment