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Edition 300
S
TAXING TIMES
ugary soft drinks are to be taxed for the first time in Spain as the Government looks to claw in eight billion extra euro next year to help balance the budget and to respond to European Commission demands to cut the country’s public defecit. Taxes on tobacco will rise to what the Government described as “conforming to European standards”, and there will also be a hike on alcohol taxes. Finance minister Cristóbal Montoro announced the budget plan to Parliament on Wednesday, which will overall bridge a gap of some 15 million euro, with a combination of increased economic growth, with the rest
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Friday 2nd December 2016
coming in from increased taxation. Montoro said that two billion euro would come from a combination of cigarette and alcohol tax levels going up plus the introduction of the sugar drink tax, though the exact effect on prices has not been declared. All fuel and energy taxation levels will stay at the current levels. One billion euro is expected to be raised in a new move to stop fraud in the declaration of IVA, whilst five billion will be put into the government coffers via an increase in corporation tax. Despite the minority Partido Popular government not having enough votes to carry measures through in
BY ALEX TRELINSKI Congress, the budget plan has got the approval of the biggest opposition party, the socialist PSOE, despite threats in recent weeks that
they would vote down the budget. The PP are also being backed by the centre Ciudadanos party.
VICIOUS GANG HELD
nine-strong Algerian robbery gang has been arrested in Alicante Province and Barcelona after allegedly running an extensive operation which saw homes robbed across the Southern Costa Blanca, plus Bilbao and Barcelona, with some of the items then shipped by
ferry from Alicante to Oran in Algeria. Eight people were detained in the Alicante area with the other arrested in Barcelona, and according to the National Police they are aged between 20 and 56, with two of them being female. They are accused of
30 crimes, of which 21 are robberies, as well the kidnapping of an Algerian man in Alicante, who was held for a ransom demand of 40,000 euro from his family. One of the gang members was also allegedly involved in a violent street assault in Alicante last summer as well as slashing the face of another man in another incident, before hiding locally in the hope of trying to escape to France. The National Police said that the gang had, up to their latest spate of burglaries, accumulated a total of over 200 arrest warrants, but that had not put them off from their criminal activities. They went for money and jewellery, with the items then pawned off to second-hand shops or gold centres, or
even taken by ferry to Algeria. Police searches of three homes in the Alicante area, after the arrest of the gang, turned up four stolen cars that were taken from four different addresses, as well as tools and electronic devices used to break into houses, plus a large selection of stolen watches and jewels. Many of the gang members used fake French nationality papers to ease their movement around Spain and further afield, with countless arrest warrants issued against them. No additional information has been released as to the court appearances of the accused, and whether some or all of them have been granted bail or remanded in custody.
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