Barcelona’s ‘Amazon tax’ survives the first judicial attack due to its slow application

The ‘Amazon tax’ of Barcelona City Councilwhich taxes e-commerce home deliveries for the recurring use of public space, For now, it resists the judicial attack promoted by the UNO employers. The Business Organization of Logistics and Transport of Spain (ONU) has announced this Wednesday the argument that supports the judicial decision of keep rate in effect for now. The entity filed a contentious-administrative appeal against the consistory and the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has admitted it for processing, although this Monday it refused to knock down the rate in a precautionary manner as requested by the complainant for “irreparable damage”.

The reason would be, as UNO has clarified in a statement, that there is more than a year left for the first payment of the rate and the entry into force this March does not yet entail any expense for the affected postal operators. Specifically, the first payment of the fee can be paid until July 31, 2024. “The Court in its order does not prejudge or assess the suitability of the rule, but rather maintains that, due to the complexity of the legal arguments, it will have to undertake an exhaustive analysis of them,” clarifies the president of the employers’ association, Francisco Aranda .

The prudence of the TSJC has not discouraged UNO, on the contrary: the employers celebrate the admission for processing and frame the refusal of this Monday in the “need [de la jueza] to study in depth the allegations presented”. He insists that the new municipal norm “contravenes basic constitutional principles”, specifically article 18.3 of the Spanish Constitution, because “it obliges postal operators to claim information from the company that makes a shipment to find out if it comes from an Internet sale and also to include in the tax settlement sensitive information such as the places of delivery of the shipments or the nature of the recipient”. All of this, according to Aranda, “prevents guarantee the secrecy of all postal communications unless required by a judicial decision & rdquor ;.

What does the rate consist of?

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On February 24, the Barcelona plenary session approved a tax ordinance with this new tax on order transport companies with a turnover of more than one million euros per year. It is applied as a tribute that they must pay for parking and occupying public space during their deliveries.

The order that resolves the petition alleges that, according to article 9 of the tax ordinance that created the tax, postal operators will only be obliged to deliver a list with the number of deliveries, without having to include any personal data that violates data protection regulations. “There is no obligation to indicate the addresses or to transfer data of the recipients, as UNO assures,” said the room in a statement collected by EFE.

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