The leaders of different business organizations in the Canary Islands have declared this Monday against the possible application of a tourist tax or ecotax on the islands, and have even suggested that the IGIC be raised by a few tenths before applying this tax measure to tourists.
This approach has come from the president of the Business Circle of Gran Canaria, Agustín Manrique de Lara, who in statements to SER Canarias collected by EFE, has suggested "recharging the IGIC with some tenths", without specifying how many, if you want to obtain extra financing for the improvement of public spaces in tourist cities, training in the field of the tourism sector or improvement of infrastructures.
Manrique de Lara believes that with a tourist tax "the message being given is that you have to tax a sector because it is negative for society" when, he continued, the tourism sector should be made positive for the environment and collaborate to boost society and improve the living conditions of the Canarians.
In addition, he has criticized "creating a figure that has more costs than the benefits it generates", in reference to the figure of the ecotax, and has wondered whether the tourist tax is to penalize a sector or to strengthen an economic activity.
Manrique de Lara has assured that "dialogue should always be open" and that taxation must be analyzed jointly, to see what taxation affects the tourism sector and for what and how you want to increase a sector that "contributes 4 out of every 10 euros to the public coffers".
The president of the Gran Canaria employers' association has assured that with these movements and ideas, the inability of public administrations to manage the resources at their disposal has been verified.
The ecotax "would not raise more than 100 million euros per year"
The president of CEOE Tenerife, Pedro Alfonso, has stated for his part that "the ecotax is more than dead, it has no sense or reason to be applied", and has opined that the willingness of the president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, to study its application implies "a certain contradiction" with the promise to lower taxes.
Alfonso has emphasized that a tax cut would "double, triple" the collection capacity of a tourist tax that "would not raise more than 100 million euros per year".
He pointed out that from the business field they are witnessing "a little astonished" at the repercussion that the calls for April 20 and the "goody-goody" position of the majority of political parties around them and their postulates are acquiring because, he stressed, "they emanate from tourismophobia".
The president of the Tenerife employers' association has delved into the fact that this movement arises from "a series of people who approach the airports to intimidate and accuse tourists with their families, with their children, so that they do not come to the Canary Islands. It's a mistake. There is someone rubbing their hands in other tourist destinations, and this is doing terrible damage," he asserted.
"It is regrettable that we are still considering that the effect generated by tourism in the Canary Islands is harmful. It has no reason," said Pedro Alfonso, who has minimized, if not denied, the impact of this industry on water consumption or queues on highways.
Regarding the proposal for a new tourist moratorium, he indicated that "hotels have not been built for some time" and some that are operating "we cannot fill them because there are people who do not want to work and have to open only half".
Regarding the request of the president of the Canary Islands for an increase in wages in the tourism sector, Pedro Alfonso has indicated that it is paid above the average and even the public administration and, therefore, there is no "a painful situation, but quite the opposite: it pulls the cart so that the rest of the sectors and the administration continue to grow".
The president of CEOE Tenerife has indicated that wage increases should be negotiated through productivity and that they are not consolidated, which the unions reject.
He stated that productivity "is a plug that the public administration has placed on companies and citizens" and has wondered how citizens do not demand a greater "correspondence between what we pay via taxes and the service and efficiency" of public administrations.
Óscar Izquierdo, president of the Provincial Federation of Construction Entities of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (FEPECO), has also spoken out in recent hours, who through a statement asks for "serenity" in the face of the "continuous agitation" of those who promote it with the intention of "loafing".
He argues that these people "only seek permanent debate, because there will always be a suitable topic, scrutinized precisely to waste time, with the pre-established objective of prolonging it as much as possible, in order to immobilize".