The Have-Nots And The Tourist Tax

Proceedings in the Balearic parliament are much like any other parliamentary proceedings. There's a good deal of noise, a good deal of superficial waffle and relatively little light. And this sounds rather like the current government. At present at any rate. Meat has yet to be put onto bone. The fleshing-out has yet to truly start, assuming it does before Podemos manage to bring it crashing down. But President Armengol made an observation this week which does shed some light. Or at least light on how she, and so presumably PSOE, perceive the tourist tax.

Lurking in the background is the thought (hope, some would put it) that Armengol will rediscover the reluctance to commit to the tax that she had before the election. As she would totally destroy the government were she to turn her back on it - Podemos' removal of support she might be able to survive but not that of Més as well - we have to assume that there is no turning back, but what she had to say about the tax highlighted, not for the first time, the divergence of opinion between the government's partners as to its purpose.

The tax was being discussed in the context of general fiscal policy. As usual, there was all the stuff about the deficit. Because of Madrid's inflexibility, the Balearics will have to find alternative means. The first point to be made about this is that, although Armengol has linked the tax to the issue of Balearic financing by the state, she hadn't associated it with the deficit. While the deficit and state financing amount to the same thing in terms of government spend, they are separate issues. So, Armengol has shifted the goalposts to a degree.

The second point, and the more important one, was the context of general taxation policy and the philosophy being applied by the Armengol government. She spoke about the redistribution of wealth between the haves and have-nots of Balearic society, referring to the likelihood of increased income tax for higher earners and rises to other taxes, such as inheritance. But in the same context, she also referred to the tourist tax. By implication, tourists are the haves, and they will be assisting in a redistribution of their own wealth.

She then went on to say that tourists, via the tax, will be showing solidarity with the have-nots, and so was seemingly making the case for the tax to be a means of assisting the government, deprived of all the financing it should get from Madrid and also of a more flexible deficit, in paying for its guaranteed social income and for services paid for out of general tax revenues. The tourist tax will be, or at least this is what Armengol appeared to be saying, just another tax.

This is most definitely not what the vice-president and minister for tourism, Biel Barceló, has been saying. The tax may be used for some tourist-related environmental projects, but fundamentally it is to be one to help with funding tourism infrastructure improvements. This is a very different objective.

The government is going to face, and it really doesn't appear to appreciate this, the devil's own job in terms of PR when the tourist tax is launched. The difficult task has already started, though maybe the government hasn't noticed the broadsides coming from the likes of Thomas Cook and Jet2. But it will become more difficult if there is a perception, rightly or wrongly, that it is no more than a general tax. A specific tax is a difficult enough "sell". But one to pay for the have-nots? Sorry to have to say it, but tourists' sense of social responsibility doesn't, generally speaking, stretch very far: not to the environment nor to the eradication of poverty.

It's not as though tourists aren't aware. Of course they are. But issues of poverty and have-nots are more a touristic thing of less-developed societies. Mallorca doesn't fall into this bracket, especially not when there is such ostentatious wealth and opulence on display in many a resort. Likewise, the environment, and so the genuine meaning of an eco-tax, is something for places where the ecology and the environment can genuinely be seen to be both spectacular and fragile. Jet2's Steve Heapy was right when he alluded to an eco-tax for destinations which are devoted to eco-tourism. Costa Rica is the principal example, and tourists willingly pay for a type of tourism that has been lampooned as being "ego tourism".

The Balearic tax isn't, in any event, an eco-tax, much though the environmentalists GOB would like it to be and much though others might like to believe that Mallorca is an eco-tourism destination, when it quite plainly isn't. So, what is the tax for? Barceló seems to know, but Armengol would appear to have other designs.