The announcement was made by Adeje mayor Jose Miguel Rodríguez Fraga following a meeting with CEST
13 august 2020
Companies and businesses whose economic activities have been badly affected by the current pandemic are continuing to receive help from the Adeje council. Some local taxes and payments have been suspended until December 2020, and now the council have announced additional aid measures including the freezing or repayment of certain local taxes for those companies that have been closed as a result of the global pandemic.
The announcement was made by Adeje mayor Jose Miguel Rodríguez Fraga following a meeting with CEST, the South Tenerife business circle, headed up by their president Roberto Ucelay. During the meeting CEST presented a document to the mayor requesting a series of measures that would alleviate fiscal problems their member companies are dealing with. Adeje has already introduced a number of ways of alleviating financial stress, including the suspension of local payments until December, so that “small business owners could forget about paying local taxes for now and deal with the more immediate issues of importance such as saving jobs and working on the reopening of their business”, said the mayor.
Ucelay stated that CEST is not just looking out for the financial welfare of their member organisations. “We are asking for these new measures because we believe it is a way of avoiding the destruction of the local productive fabric of society and of saving jobs and it is a way of keeping the south’s primary industry, tourism, alive.”
Adeje has told CEST that they will return some local taxes relating to the time that businesses were closed due to the state of alarm announced on March 14th. And the council continue to offer businesses a flexible payment schedule as previously announced as well as reductions for those who have their business rates on direct debit, which are significant savings for larger companies. The council will be making up the deficit in public funding from the surplus from previous years to avoid a drop in the quality and kind of public services that local citizens can expect, the demand for which has also grown during the pandemic.
CEST is also asking the council to look at a reduction in rates and VAT charges, but for now any decision on these is on hold as there are decisions expected from both the regional and national governments in this regard. These are taxes that are not controlled directly by local government.
Adeje’s 2020 budget proposals are looking to increase investment in job protection and creation by over 200% on 2019 and the council is also waiting for official confirmations from national government on aid packages they wish to put in place. It is hoped that in September they will be able to move forward in this regard.