The Government of the Canary Islands, meeting this Monday in Council, has given the green light to a new training plan for self-employed workers, entrepreneurs and local SMEs to better understand the incentives offered by the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF) of the islands to boost their activity. The initiative, promoted by the REF commissioner, José Ramón Barrera, will be developed in collaboration with the Official Colleges of Economists and Administrative Managers of both provinces and the College of Mercantile Graduates of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The local demarcations of the Spanish Association of Tax Advisors (AEDAF) and the Canary Association of Tax Advisors will also participate.
The project contemplates the organization of basic courses, workshops, talks and practical seminars given by the advisors of the participating organizations, with the aim of explaining in a clear and accessible way the fiscal and economic tools that are available to the Canary Islands productive fabric through the REF.
The sessions, of a maximum of four hours, will address from a historical introduction on the origin of the Canary Islands jurisdiction to practical examples on how to apply current deductions and bonuses in different taxes, as well as general notions of the specific taxes of the islands, such as the IGIC or the AIEM, and the economic compensations for transport, electricity and water, among other measures to alleviate the additional costs derived from insularity and the condition of the Canary Islands as an outermost territory.
Bringing the REF closer to the whole of the citizenry. That is the objective that the Government of the Canary Islands has set to support this action and others that are being developed in parallel in different areas, so that the specificities of the Canary Islands regime are part of the basic knowledge of the island population and its greater application contributes to promoting the economic and social development of the region. With that purpose, the commissioner and the Minister of Education presented just two weeks ago the didactic material Edu REF, with which the jurisdiction will begin to be studied in the Canary Islands public centers from the earliest ages to Baccalaureate.
The agreement with the professional entities approved today by the Governing Council will allow to offer free training to those who can directly benefit from the incentives that make the Canary Islands have the best taxation in Europe: 142,000 self-employed people and about 60,000 SMEs and micro-SMEs in the archipelago.
While many large companies on the islands already apply the REF incentives, statistics show that, in the case of self-employed workers, entrepreneurs and micro-SMEs, their use is not so widespread, which reduces the competitiveness of the local economy.
The Reserve for Investments in the Canary Islands (RIC), for example, would allow a hairdresser or the owner of a bar who wants to renovate their premises to save up to 30% of the cost of the work through their taxes. Meanwhile, the REF allows a self-employed worker to deduct the purchase of a delivery vehicle in their Income Tax return or a cooperative of quesadillas, almogrote or papayas to benefit from a 50% deduction in their taxes, as well as any other industrial, agricultural or livestock company that produces tangible (non-digital) goods in the islands.
Translating the complex legal framework of the current regime, in force since 1972, into a useful guide to better manage a business and know what to ask an advisor when an investment needs to be made is the challenge that the activities that the Executive will promote through the REF commissioner will respond to in order to generalize key knowledge and allow business decisions to be made with all the alternatives on the table.
In addition to the professional associations that collaborate by providing training, the program will seek to rely on sectoral organizations, foundations, unions, public entities and commercial and business associations to extend the scope of the initiative throughout the territory: neighborhood by neighborhood, town by town, island by island.
The initial calendar includes the celebration of 42 training activities dictated by the professional associations during this year throughout the archipelago. As detailed in the collaboration agreement with the tax advisors, this is not a one-off campaign, but a project that will continue for the remainder of the legislature to make the REF understood and valued by the whole society.
