The mayor announces the moratorium on payments of tables and chairs for all 2021 and municipal tax freeze

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, hs announced today that the City Council will suspend "throughout the year 2021" the collection of the fee for the installation of tables and chairs and will proceed to "the freezing of municipal taxes, fees and public prices in the sections in which the amount depends on a municipal decision ”; measures that "will enter into force on January 1".

Toni Pérez recalled that "at this time the collection of the fee for the installation of tables and chairs is suspended until March 31, 2021 by plenary agreement", although "we understand that its extension until December 31 is necessary to continue mitigating, to the extent of the municipal possibilities, the situation that the hotel and catering sector is experiencing as a result of this crisis ”.

The mayor has announced both measures at a press conference in which he has also reported that "the municipal Corporation and temporary staff will see their salary frozen in 2021, expressly renouncing the salary increase approved by the Government of Spain", whose percentage is around 0.9%. However, "although the salary of politicians and advisers is frozen, the City Council will comply with the salary increases approved for municipal personnel, both civil servants and contract staff."

Toni Pérez has stressed that “the government teams that I have chaired since 2015 have been characterized by austerity, in doing more with less, and that is why we are going to continue with that policy, especially in a time as difficult as this, as so many people are having a hard time ”.

In this sense, he has advanced that "before the end of the year we will manage new grants of different kinds", in line with those already articulated to minimize the economic effects of Covid-19 on homes and bussiness sector of the city, such as: families, commerce, companies, freelancers and SMEs.

To questions from journalists, the mayor has clarified in 2019 the City Council settled about half a million euros for the tax for occupation of tables and chairs in the streets; an income that will not arrive next year.

Toni Pérez has emphasized that "there are fees such as the occupation of tables in the streets whose collection can be suspended", but the same is not the case with those that are intended to "cover the cost of a service", such as waste management. In any case, it has influenced that "in the sections that we are allowed by the General State Budget Law to reduce the amount of municipal taxes or fees, we will do so"; in the same way that "there will be no tax increase" in " the sections in which we have tax freeze authority ”.