The Mogán City Council finds legal support for applying the tourist tax in the Local Treasury Law, which in article 20 states that local entities can establish fees for the provision of public services that refer to or directly affect the subject.
It is precisely these public services linked to tourist activity that the City Council intends to tax from 2025 through this tax, so that the overload of their operation does not fall exclusively on the residents of the municipality.
The City Council will not apply a tax for overnight stays in tourist accommodation, as this is already covered by the Local Finance Law. However, it can approve a tax for the public services it provides under its jurisdiction, and the model it has chosen is to consider everyone staying in these establishments—hotels, aparthotels, campsites , holiday homes, etc.—as a taxpayer. In this way, tourists will pay a tax for each night in the municipality, with the possibility of establishing a maximum number of nights and other types of exemptions, which, like the tax itself, are still under review.
The payment will be made by the tourists directly to these establishments and the owners or owners of the establishments will be the ones who, through the existing Virtual Tax Office, enter the corresponding amounts, foreseeably on a quarterly basis, to the City Council, which will also enable a function inspector to control that the collection of the tourist tax is actually being carried out under the regime that is finally established.
In Spain there are no precedents for municipalities with a fee for the provision of public services to tourists. So far there is a regulation in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, which establish taxes that levy tourist overnight stays, but these have been approved by their corresponding Autonomous Governments, which are the ones that have the legal competence to create and regulate them.
Local administrations, on the other hand, can create a rate whose taxable event consists of the provision of services or the performance of activities that relate to, affect or benefit the taxpayer, and which in this specific case would be the tourist himself.
There is no doubt that Local Administrations of tourist municipalities like Mogán make a higher investment in infrastructure and its maintenance, and in services such as cleaning and gardens, among others. Thus, the objective of the tourist tax on which the municipality works is that the extra effort made in favor of tourist activity is not assumed entirely by the residents, and that it is the visitors of the destination themselves, who reach one million. annually, those who contribute to financing these services from which they benefit during their stay.
For example, in the plenary session held last Friday, the multi-annual expenditure of the contract for the expansion and operation, under a 15-year concession regime, of the Playa de Mogán desalination plant was approved, amounting to 12.144.899,62 euros. . The expansion of this plant is motivated by the growth in water demand, mainly in the tourist area of Playa de Mogán. Should it only be the nearly 23.000 registered residents in Mogán who, with their local taxes, cover this expense, which is essential for the proper functioning of the municipality?
The Mogán City Council, through its technicians and the local entity GESTIONA, continues to work and analyze the ordinances of municipalities in 19 other European countries that already have this tourist tax. The objective is that Mogán can begin to apply it in January 2025.
