Algarve ratepayers in some of the region’s largest boroughs should prepare for the tax burden to increase in 2014. The mayors of Portimão, Faro, Albufeira and Vila Real de Santo António have given the go-ahead to maximum levels of property rates taxation (IMI) next year – saying there is nothing else they can do.
But elsewhere, boroughs like Monchique, Silves and Aljezur are going the other way – keeping rates to an absolute minimum.
And in Loulé, the Algarve’s largest municipality, rates are being kept the same as they were last year.
The news, reported in Correio da Manhã newspaper, means there will be “significant differences” between rating levels in local boroughs.
The highest charges will run at 0.8% for urban buildings and 0.5% for those already evaluated under the “Código de IMI” (rates code). And the lowest will run at 0.5% – 0.3%.
The high-end charging mayors justified maximum rate levels saying they are “impositions defined under PAEL” – a government support programme for heavily indebted councils.
“It would have been far better for local power to minimise the fiscal impact,” agreed Portimão mayor Isilda Gomes, but “it isn’t possible, or executable”, as the issue is covered by “legal stipulations over which our Executive has no power”.
Jorge Botelho, president of AMAL (the association of Algarve borough councils) as well as mayor of Tavira, backed Gomes up, stressing the “enormous losses” suffered by municipalities as a result of the ‘almost complete standstill’ of the property sector.
“Of all the taxes we pay, it’s important to remember that municipal taxes only represent 12% of the total,” said. “The largest tax burden, almost 88%, is imposed by the government.”
Photo: Francisco Colaço
