Between 12 and 15 million euros more is the sum that the Finance Department at Estepona Town Hall expects to be able to pay into the municipal coffers once the Tax on Building Work, Construction and Installations has been revised. Around 4,000 licences issued in the last four years will be checked to establish whether the amount paid was really correct.
This amount is based on the real cost of the building work in question. “Imagine that a developer comes to the Town Hall with a scheme for 50 homes, for instance, and he says that it’s going to cost, let’s say, six million euros”, said the councillor in charge of the department in question, Manuel Reina, to explain the way that the tax is levied.
“The developer is obliged to pay 3.5 per cent of this estimated cost in tax and 1.1 per cent for the issue of planning permission. However what happens is that, once the building work has been completed, if the true costs are the same as the estimate it is sheer concidence.” In fact the final cost of building work is usually 20 per cent higher than the initial estimate, so the tax due is more than the amount that has actually been paid.
With this inspection, which will start in about six months’ time, the aim is to study every single licence issued in the last four years - which is the maximum period of time allowed by law for the application of changes to amounts due. The final cost of each piece of building work will be estimated and the tax due corrected in each case.
Reina pointed out that of the 4,000 licences affected by the inspection, in 90 per cent of the cases the correct amount will not have been paid. “We don’t want to put developers and builders into a tight spot but simply get them to pay according to the real cost of building work carried out and not less”, said the councillor, who also stressed that developers and builders will be able to make claims if they are not in agreement with the new sum claimed by the council in tax.
In addition there is the tax on minor building work that householders have done for repairs or remodelling on their homes. In the last four years the Town Hall has collected around 50 million euros for the tax in all cases.
News in Andalucia is Courtesy of Sur in English
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