Paying increasingly expensive taxes, while the price or value of the home decreases, is an institutional scam against citizens.
The Real Estate Tax, I.B.I., also known as "Urban Contribution", taxes people with real estate properties, applying a percentage on their cadastral value, which is calculated objectively from data in the Real Estate Cadastre, without dating, and is integrated by the cadastral value of the land and the buildings that are on it. For its determination, the valuation criteria established in the regulations governing the real estate cadastre must be taken into account and, as a general rule, it cannot exceed the market value.
The IBI is an annual tax, which each City Council has the power, within established values and applying a series of coefficients to them, thus varying the amounts to be paid, depending on the municipality and the principles applied from each consistory. It is necessary to clarify the fiscal exceptions that benefit religions, but never private citizens, who must pay "religiously" without the opportunity to discuss the applied parameters or the constant increase. Along with it, garbage collection or other municipal services are usually added.
The lack of consistency in the revisions of the value stipulated by the Real Estate Cadastre, so that if the value of the home decreases, the payment is reduced, or that the added coefficients are variable, are factors that come together to produce a global scam to citizens, who are more paying a direct tax for their property. While it is true that we have assumed this as logical and natural, it is also not acceptable that the owners and occupants of the property pay the same taxes as those who have income from the property and are not actual occupants. Nor is it fair that the church hoards so much real estate and does not pay taxes.
The minimum in the times we live in would be to review the cadastral value annually, which is not done now, establishing fixed coefficients that do not surprise in the bill and, even, giving the opportunity to pay the IBI by providing community services at the municipal level, when an economic situation is accredited that does not allow the payment to be faced.
For the moment, what we see is that market values are getting closer and closer to the cadastral value and the IBI as well. What appears to be a local attempt to keep a real estate market expensive that has fallen rapidly, although it is not so noticeable in the Canary Islands.
More institutional sanity and less eagerness for exploitation are needed, in order to speak of correct municipal management in any point of our archipelago map. It is necessary to have sufficient honesty and update the cadastral value and the IBI annually, so as not to act as assailants with the owners. Would it be possible?
Pedro González Cánovas, Member of the Canarian Nationalist Alternative
