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The 'austerity budget' undid with one small almost unnoticed piece of tax legislation any good it thought it had achieved by altering the still overly generous labour laws.
A friend whose husband owns a small construction business -a typical PYME - received a call from their tax lawyer informing them that from yesterday all invoices bearing an IVA add-on had to pay the IVA even if the invoice had not been paid. This new law is retrospective for the past twelve months...
This means in practice that whether or not they have been paid for work done, IVA on that invoice must be paid in advance. Prior practice in most countries is that an unpaid invoice is carried over to the next VAT/IVA quarter by when the invoice will presumably have been settled - some companies have payment periods of up to ninety days.
Now PYMEs will have to pay as yet unreceived sums of money, which could be considerable. The amounts involved could conceivably be greater than the cost of any redundancy payments even at the still excessive new rate.
Spain needs to reduce debt and deficit to get back on some sort of even keel. To do that there must be in place, along with equitable and just austerity measures, policies to promote growth. Where are they in this budget? The above mentioned law will hinder growth and could put some PYMEs out of business.
The increases in gas and electricity prices will hit hardest those on low incomes and will also affect business which will inevitably pass on these higher costs.
Have the politicians in Spain, like those in the UK, no idea how ordinary people conduct their lives? Do they not know that the owners of many PYMEs are less well-off than many employed workers?? Do they know how an economy functions??
The NI Assembly has come up with a novel tax, known as the 'Tesco tax' whereby business rates on larger companies have been increased and redistributed to ease the tax burden on small business. Of course there has been the usual moaning from Tesco but as a NI Assembly spokesman pointed out, the cost to Tesco will be £66000 p.a. , less than Tesco got from the sale of handbags on New Year's Day....
So this budget is worth a mass peacful demo, not for its grinding of the poor into the dust but because of its sheer lack of innovation, imagination and grasp of what is needed to bring the inevitable period of austerity to a speedy end.
Two unconnected points: a mass gathering of far-right groups is taking place this weekend in Denmark. The aim: to stop the threat to Europe of an Islamist 'takeover'.
As I said elsewhere,we ignore the politics of ethnicity and nationalism at our peril.
And secondly...apologies to Solwriter if you are reading this for my not commiserating on your headache....I was about to when all communication was brought to a halt when my laptop battery gave out....
A friend whose husband owns a small construction business -a typical PYME - received a call from their tax lawyer informing them that from yesterday all invoices bearing an IVA add-on had to pay the IVA even if the invoice had not been paid. This new law is retrospective for the past twelve months...
This means in practice that whether or not they have been paid for work done, IVA on that invoice must be paid in advance. Prior practice in most countries is that an unpaid invoice is carried over to the next VAT/IVA quarter by when the invoice will presumably have been settled - some companies have payment periods of up to ninety days.
Now PYMEs will have to pay as yet unreceived sums of money, which could be considerable. The amounts involved could conceivably be greater than the cost of any redundancy payments even at the still excessive new rate.
Spain needs to reduce debt and deficit to get back on some sort of even keel. To do that there must be in place, along with equitable and just austerity measures, policies to promote growth. Where are they in this budget? The above mentioned law will hinder growth and could put some PYMEs out of business.
The increases in gas and electricity prices will hit hardest those on low incomes and will also affect business which will inevitably pass on these higher costs.
Have the politicians in Spain, like those in the UK, no idea how ordinary people conduct their lives? Do they not know that the owners of many PYMEs are less well-off than many employed workers?? Do they know how an economy functions??
The NI Assembly has come up with a novel tax, known as the 'Tesco tax' whereby business rates on larger companies have been increased and redistributed to ease the tax burden on small business. Of course there has been the usual moaning from Tesco but as a NI Assembly spokesman pointed out, the cost to Tesco will be £66000 p.a. , less than Tesco got from the sale of handbags on New Year's Day....
So this budget is worth a mass peacful demo, not for its grinding of the poor into the dust but because of its sheer lack of innovation, imagination and grasp of what is needed to bring the inevitable period of austerity to a speedy end.
Two unconnected points: a mass gathering of far-right groups is taking place this weekend in Denmark. The aim: to stop the threat to Europe of an Islamist 'takeover'.
As I said elsewhere,we ignore the politics of ethnicity and nationalism at our peril.
And secondly...apologies to Solwriter if you are reading this for my not commiserating on your headache....I was about to when all communication was brought to a halt when my laptop battery gave out....
