The tax burden is getting heavy for shippers. Yesterday, Spain's Minister of the Economy confirmed a 2.8 cent per liter tax hike for freight companies that transport merchandise using trucks, buses and taxis. The increase will take effect on January 1, 2012. The addition tax will counter the customary tax rebate on "professional diesel."
The change to fiscal policy was announced yesterday by the director general of taxation Jesús Gascón at Fenadismer and the National Association of Highway Transportation (Spanish acronym is CNTC). At the same time, the leaders communicated their intentions to defend national diesel in Brussels.
The change is owed to the application of a current European directive related to the aforementioned taxation on energy products. This means that in 2012 the same will apply for fuel consumption of freight companies and normal consumers. Complete exemption will remain in place for other sectors: agriculture, fishing, mining, and even some highway transport vehicles that are related to rail, marine and air travel. Fenadismer states that this situation could be discriminatory, because "there are no economic or environmental motives to justify the tax." To this, the Spanish Federation of Highway Transport (Spanish acronym is CETM) added that representatives from the federal administration are upset, given that they know that the sector will cover the cost of externalities and infrastructure repair with their taxes.
