The Barcelona City Council has definitively approved this Friday the so-called Amazon tax, which the council will charge companies that deliver products purchased online. The rate represents 1.25% of its activity and will only affect postal operators that invoice more than one million euros per year. It will go into effect next week.
Barcelona en Comú, the PSC, ERC and Citizens have voted in favor of the measure, which stems from a proposal by Ernest Maragall’s group, which was agreed upon in 2019 with the Barcelona en Comú government and the PSC as a condition for agreeing on the 2020 budgets, it seeks to encourage companies to resort to the collection points of the shipments above the transfer to the homes, which generate a considerable affectation of the public space: those vans stopped while they deliver the package.
pioneer measure
The concretion comes three and a half years after the process began, which has been complex, due to the lack of precedents. Because the consistory says and the experts who have assisted say that it is a pioneering rate in Spain and Europe.
In total, the council will charge an annual maximum of 2.6 million euros for this delivery at home, a figure that has been reached after a calculation linked to the occupation of public space and the billing of companies. It supposes a rate of 1.25% of the activity of postal operators, which are the ones that will have to pay, although only if they invoice more than one million euros per year.
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If the phenomenon is reduced, if the number of vans that stop in the middle of a street while the delivery man runs to deliver a package and returns to the vehicle is reduced, the collection would be lower, but the government maintains that losing that money would not be bad because it would mean that a change in habits has been achieved. Therefore, the transport of packages to collection points will not be affected by the rate. Another objective of the tax is to defend traditional commerce against electronic commerce.
Five operators, 62% of billing
The postal operators that have to pay the fee, as has already been said, those with a turnover of more than a million euros, are 26 in the Catalan capital, of which the main one is Amazon, by far. Other known ones are DHL or UPS, among others. Among the five with the highest turnover they account for 62% of the total turnover.