Dick Dasterdly

http://www.thelocal.es/20130821/span...onal-headlines

I reckon they've really cracked it this time,

.........either that or else they're totally crackers, which seems slightly more likely.

Just think they could add to that another 5 euros an hour tax for every hour every holidaymaker spends in the Sun and pay off the National debt in no time at all.

stuboy

Desperate times require desperate measures. This is another example. When most of the developed world is focusing on /aiming for sustainable energy solutions Spain takes an opposing stance which will do little for investor confidence.

Hardly the policy of a progressive nation. Spain is looking knackered.

Record levels of debt and unemployment. Corruption at civic and national level rife.

A black market economy that would put many African countries to shame.

Tax avoidance a national Sport.

Tax/revenue collection punitive to the honest man.

Bureaucracy unnecessarily complicated and onerous. It's only to purpose to provide continued reasonably paid employment and pensions to funcionarios.

Nepotism rife.

State assistance nil (or very little), should you have the misfortune to fall on hard times.

ononno

Hey, that's Italy your talking about.

HBG

It's hard to disagree with the sentiment, but I need to point out that unemployment benefit is double that of the UK.

However, the lengths Spain is going to to raise more taxes is frightening. The latest one to raise expat hackles is the extra tax demanded on house buying. The normal scenario is paying 150K for a house, the proper value, and Hacienda asking for an extra 8K in tax because their valuation of the house in question is 225K, a ludicrous figure plucked out of the air purely to raise tax.

They seem to back down every time someone appeals their valuation, but by the time you've paid the expensive lawyer you're no better off.

HeikeundAlan

could get worse yet ...............
they might copy the germans and have you pay to go on the beach

Dick Dasterdly

Do the Germans have a beach worth going on, or has Mrs Merkel just taken over the Costa del Sol to cover half a percent of Spains National debt ?

amideislas

Like I said.. who are the criminals, actually? Those giving, or those taking?

amideislas

In Germany, Mallorca has oft been referred to as the "17er Bundesland" (17th province) of Germany. But that's been waning for a while... The Scandis and Russians are taking a bite out of the German's stake.. A few more Brits, lately, too.

Dick Dasterdly

A pity they didn't just buy it.

I'm sure Rajoy and co would have co-operated for a few million extra euros slipped into their foreign bank accounts and that sh!thole Magaluf would have been cleaned up fit enough to eat your dinner of the pavements.


http://www.thelocal.es/20130624/germ...-and-cheap-sex

amideislas

Funny, that article refers primarily to the "Ballermann" or Playa de Palma, the almost exclusively German party destination, which is sleazy to the extremes of sleaze (and there are now plans to doze it and turn it into a 5-star resort).

Magaluf has no shortage of sleaze too, but by comparison, Magaluf is about 3 stars more upscale than the Ballermann..

By the way, I understand Gerhard Schroeder actually did offer to buy it some decades ago. Flatly rejected of course...

amideislas

This, like so many other brilliant Spanish means of collecting cash, again appears woefully extortionate.

There was another thread discussing a law that would make it illegal to store energy independently, and although it wouldn't surprise me that Spain would go to all the trouble to pass the law, it would be all but completely unenforceable.

This one is about penalising the use of solar panels, which is much easier to to detect and enforce. Worse, until recently, it was encouraged and subsidised, so a huge number of people are now using them.

Seems to me that this ingenious cash cow is just about the same as herding cattle into the pen, and then picking them off with high powered rifles.

On the other hand, I suppose it could be argued that because the system is so inefficient, it would take many years to find them, and impose fines on all the users of solar panels anyway.

Unfortunately, the Spanish seem so willing to accept whatever is imposed on them, perhaps they'll just pay the tax, or even get rid of their solar power systems and return to paying endesa's extortionate rates because Solar becomes too expensive and/or risky to have. I can only imagine how much people will pay for the "gratuito" obligatory kit to connect to their solar system to monitor their usage. Probably hundreds, if not thousands for the "installation" and then some "rental" fee on top, all for the "right" to pay some ridiculous tax and give away excess energy free to the power companies.

Ahh the beauty of operating within a corrupt system and their cronies hell-bent on collecting as much cash as possible. "It's the law".

HeikeundAlan

Germany has been charging the Kurtaxe (visitor's tax)
for as long as I can remember it says it pays for the up keep of the beaches.
You have to really look around to find a free bit along the northsea.

amideislas

Aww hell, Germany has all kinds of ridiculous taxes such as kirchensteuer. It's not cheap. either. About €300 per year per family. generates about €9 billion per year for the vatican, tax-free, and free from any requirement to even disclose it or disclose what it's used for.

German TV license fees have just been changed to be obligatory of every household, regardless of whether they have a TV or not. Worse, it's not even supposed to a government-imposed "tax", but collected by a private company that is supposed to collect the fees from each household and distribute them to the public TV networks. Low and behold, this private company collects the fees from anybody it can find, notoriously makes all kinds of "mistakes" including attempts to aggressively collect it from each person registered at any address (including children!), which many people unwittingly pay out of fear of huge fines.

But even worse, businesses are also now required to pay it, based on the number of employees they have. For large businesses, the fees can be over €10K per year. It has nothing to do with whether they have a TV or not, but how many employees they have, each of which obliged to pay independently anyway. It's quite simply, double-taxing.

The irony is that German public TV is about as boring as anything despite having huge budgets, the execs are all millionaires, and is more a less just a propaganda machine for the the sitting government. Comparatively, I'd take the BBC over German public TV anytime - hands down.

Another example of pure waste of taxpayer money solely to line pockets. Legal extortion. "It's the law".

HBG

Up until a year ago, I was quite happy with the Spanish tax system that I had paid into for many years, especially because they accepted the 'double taxation' agreement with the UK. As far as I can see that has all gone out of the window now and a lot of expats like myself are trying to make ourselves as safe as possible. It's not easy.

Maybe1day

Spot on, And they say they are the 6th richest country (Of where?)