The City Council of Marbella (Málaga) has increased its financial capacity by almost 12% in 2022, keeping taxes frozen, “which supports the economic strength of the city and the management carried out”.
The mayor, Ángeles Muñoz, has highlighted, after the approval by the Local Government Board of the spending ceiling for the preparation of the 2023 municipal budgets, the fact of having “achieved that increase even in times of pandemic and uncertainty”.
In this sense, Muñoz recalled that this spending limit for this year was 235 million euros and has specified that this figure rises to almost 267 for next year.
“This positive income statement has a lot to do with the economic dynamism of the municipality and with the involvement of the private sector, which has been able to see an opportunity in our town,” stressed Muñoz, who was accompanied by the councilor for the Treasury Felix Romero.
The councilor has also highlighted that “because of this, the Consistory has been able to have 9.6 percent more around investment, an amount that has increased by 22.88% in the last five years” and has indicated, on the other hand, that 2022 “has been a good year in terms of economic activity.”
“For this reason, when the City Council has to determine its spending limit for next year, it is based on two parameters, such as the one that has to do with the percentage of increase determined by the Ministry of Finance and the one that determines the city itself, such as the real income it has had throughout 2022, ”said the mayor.
In this regard, he has specified that “these are parameters that have nothing to do with subsidies, or with PIES (Participations in State Taxes) or with the transfers made by the Junta de Andalucía.”
Muñoz has stated regarding the increase for 2023 that “the priority is to allocate it to social spending and investments, in addition to maintaining and increasing the entire battery of fiscal measures, reducing pressure in this area where possible.” In addition, he has stressed that the increase of almost 12 percent “has been done with an absolute freeze of taxes and maintaining the wide range of bonuses that this City Council has.”
In this sense, he has detailed that “in the municipality opening a business is worth zero euros, building licenses up to 10,000 euros are exempt from payment and public transport is free, among others.” The first mayor explained that already at the end of August there was a meeting with the different municipal delegations to determine the basic lines of the municipal budget, whose intention is to approve it within this same year 2022.