Employers’ criticisms of the taxes of the Generalitat. Workforce Development has warned this Friday of the risk of relocations Y Job’s lose as a consequence of the taxation of the Generalitat, especially the environmental. The straw that broke the camel’s back is new tax on facilities that emit greenhouse gases (CO2) and the limitations on waste incineration, foreseen by the Catalan Executive, to which the business organization asks for an “urgent rectification”.
Foment’s board of directors has approved a manifesto in favor of a “competitive and strong” Catalan industry, and has called for an industrial policy that “does not harm economic activity or compromise competitiveness in Catalonia”. In its manifesto, the employers’ association chaired by Josep Sanchez Llibre highlights that “Catalonia has 15 taxes of its own and is the autonomous community that has the most”. Of these 15 own taxes, “5 directly tax the industry and new ones are being prepared. The conclusion is that the industry in Catalonia is mistreated, in relation to other communities.”
Social cohesion tool
During the act of presentation of the manifesto, the vice president of the employers’ association and president of the Energy Commission, Virginia Guindahas highlighted the role of industry as “social cohesion tool”, an economic engine that creates stable jobs with salaries well above the average and an export engine. He lamented that the Generalitat is promoting these two new actions that “will compromise economic recovery” at a time that “is not the right one” because the industry is facing a new investment cycle throughout Europe to transform the sector towards digitization and decarbonization.
The employers consider that, in this context, new taxes and technological limitations cannot be imposed, which are currently considered the best available by the European framework. The Vice President of Foment, Joan Roget, has assured that the Catalan industry is committed to environmental sustainability and aligned with the transition towards a sustainable model, but has said that this must be done in such a way as to guarantee competitiveness and productivity.
inopportune and unlucky
The manifesto dismisses as “completely inopportune and unfortunate” the new tax figure “that will fiscally punish the production of industrial activity in our country and, therefore, will favor in relative terms the positioning of other nearby places, to attract activities that could have been destined in Catalonia, and punishing in relative terms the Catalan producers in their productive competitiveness, in a context of sharp rise in energy prices”.
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For this reason, the employers’ association has requested an “urgent” rectification of these measures to ensure the future that had been agreed in the National Agreement for Industry and has requested that the spirit of this agreement be recovered to achieve a competitive and strong Catalan industry.
The new tax on installations that emit greenhouse gases and the limitations on the incineration of waste, which sets a two-year period for its elimination in Catalonia, are included in the development of the financial and fiscal measures for 2022.