The field increasingly dispenses with assistance for the refund of the Special Hydrocarbons Tax due to its complexity. 2007 requests for reimbursement by professionals in the sector have been reduced by 40% due, they point out, to the “bad design” of it.
Specifically, the agrarian organization emphasizes that the necessary steps to be able to obtain the constitution of an obstacle for farmers. They must request it once they have already made the expense and must also deliver numerous information to the Tax Agency.
“We see that the design of the aid is not made to encourage people to ask for it, but clearly to the contrary. In addition, when dealing with the Tax Agency everything is more sensitive and an inspection, no matter how well things are done, no one want,” the organization said in a statement.
Not only the requests fell, but also the amount returned, which fell by 24.4% compared to 2007. By autonomous communities, Asturias, the Balearic Islands and Extremadura led the falls, with a reduction of 71.2%, 54 .9% and 47.2%, respectively, in the number of applications, while Andalusia is the one that fell the least, although it did so by 16.8%.
Regarding the total amount returned, in each community the Canary Islands, Asturias and the Balearic Islands once again stand out in terms of reductions (-72.8%, -53.8% and -44.3%), while Murcia, Cantabria and Galicia see their returned imports increase (11.5 %, 5.3% and 2.6%). Finally, regarding the volume of diesel, the situation is mixed. Thus, while the Canary Islands, Asturias and Balearic Islands have reduced their volume (-64.2%, -42.4% and -31%), Murcia, Cantabria and Galicia have increased it substantially (35%, 30.2% and 26.1%, respectively).
A sector hit by the rise in fuel prices
Unión de Uniones has insisted that the increase in the price of fuel in recent years, with an average price at the state level above the euro per liter, much higher than the price that has been occurring in the last 8 years, for which they justify modify this aid system and adapt it to the new realities so that it is a help and not a “bureaucratic nuisance”.
He also recalled that European regulations currently allow a percentage of return of the IEH greater than the one that is being applied, which would inject another almost 14 million euros as support for the sector.
In this way, Unión de Uniones has demanded that the amount of the refund be increased to 75.71 euros/1,000 liters, the maximum that the EU would now allow and that this would help to relax the high production costs to which facing the sector for more than two years.
The agrarian organization has reiterated the importance of launching a true professional agricultural diesel with the lowest possible tax rate and that enjoys an agile IEH refund mechanism, being the most appropriate that it is discounted at the time of the acquisition of the Diesel to improve the competitiveness of farms and avoid unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles.
