Tourist tax payment at a hotel in Mallorca

Tourist tax payment at reception. | Patricia Lozano

Andrew EdePalma20/08/2023 14:44
TW
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The new Balearic government wishes to find a formula whereby residents of the Balearics no longer have to pay the tourist tax. How the public will cheer if and when President Prohens manages to rid them of this onerous tax. When they spend the occasional weekend at a Mallorca inland hotel hideaway in winter, they will no longer be confronted with a demand - at most - of one euro a night.

The government hopes to get round EU regulations by allowing residents to claim their tourist tax payments back through their annual income tax declarations. Yes, and how many citizens are likely to bother doing this? Once it's paid, it's paid. If there are any residents running up bills of a hundred euros, then maybe. But we don't know if there are, just as we don't know how much residents currently contribute to the annual pot. If the government itself knows, it isn't letting on.

The government may well claim that getting the money back will act as an incentive for residents to, for example, spend more than just the occasional weekend at a hotel in winter, thus helping to tackle seasonality, etc., etc. Indeed, but if this is the case, what about non-residents?

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There is actually an easier formula - scrapping the tax. But the Partido Popular government won't be doing this, unlike when they scrapped the old ecotax back in 2003. And why won't they be scrapping it? Approximately 140 million euros revenue per year (including whatever amount residents contribute) may just have something to do with it.

But this isn't of course the reason. As President Prohens explained before she became president, the tourist tax is socially accepted. By whom? Not the hoteliers, that's for sure, and one should explain that hoteliers, as with business in general, are covered by the term 'social agents'. No, not accepted by the hoteliers but by the general public. Surveys have consistently pointed to public approval of the tax.

In which case, why bother trying to refund it?