We are told that there are 300 houses in Bigastro that have not been paying for garbage collection. Since the rate we pay is determined by dividing the cost of the service by the number of houses, that means we are all paying more than we should. The mayor says that the rate we pay will go down once those 300 are included in the calculation. I don’t suppose it will be much but every little helps.
Actually, our rate was set at 50 euros to be collected bimonthly with our water bill when the rest of the town were only paying 35 euros which did not seem fair. After several years, that anomaly was cleared up and we now pay the same as everyone else except those 300 of course. However, we never got back the amount we had overpaid (six years or more at 90 euoros per year).
I seem to recall that the council also discovered there were houses that did not pay local council taxes, maybe they were the same ones that didn’t pay for refuse collection. Once that anomaly is cleared up, I wonder if the mayor intends to apply the same principle of sharing the cost to that tax as well.
You may well wonder why certain houses were allowed to avoid paying tax. Was it a simple mistake or was there some other reason? The story I have heard is that, these people were given the privilege in return for their votes by the previous socialist council. Whether that is true or not I cannot say and it would be very difficult for anyone to prove that was the case. There is a lot of hearsay in local Spanish politics!
What is clear though is, if you compare the taxes we pay for our houses, for our cars and for refuse collection with nearby Jacarilla, Bigastro vastly overcharges its citizens. The PSOE and UPLC want our taxes to be lowered but Charo Bañuls says that is not possible.
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