Law of ‘telecos’: the operators ask to change the taxation and public support for the social rate
Telecommunications operators they will ask the Executive to undertake a fiscal reform at the local level, that makes the use of geographic numbering more flexible and that the cost of implementing the new social rate be assumed with public money. These will be some of the requests that the sector will make to the Government within the framework of the public hearing of the Telecommunications Law. The process closes on October 14, but the idea of the companies is to have a first draft that unifies all their proposals this week. As confirmed invested, DigitalES, the employers of the sector, will be in charge of coordinating these suggestions and hopes to have a first common document before next Monday. It will include the proposals of all the partners, among which are companies of the stature of Telefónica, Orange, Vodafone, MásMóvil, Euskaltel, as well as network infrastructure companies such as Cellnex and technology such as Ericsson, Cisco, ZTE, Nokia, IBM, Altran o Everis. In this way, the agreed document will be sent to the Secretary of State for Telecommunications so that it can assess it for the final text of the Law that it hopes to send to Congress before the end of the year. And what will it include? The information collected by Invertia indicates that it will not be very different from the historical demands of the sector, many of which are not contained in the legal body that the Government presented a few weeks ago. local rates In this way, the main one will continue to be the need for fiscal reform at the local level. Historically, operators have argued that their tax contribution is well above their activity, mainly because they must pay a series of local fees and taxes, which are often due to the services themselves. The sector telco represents 2.9% of Spanish GDP, however, their companies contribute 30% of the total Tax on Economic Activities (IAE) collected by the AEAT for national and provincial quotas. That is why the sector has been asking for years for local, provincial and regional rates to be unified to simplify them and reduce your final bill. Another point that seems pertinent to the sector is making the use of geographic numbering more flexible. For decades prefixes have been used for specific areas, but in the sector they ask that the Executive open its hand and – in a context in which the use of landlines has lagged behind mobile phones – the issue can be deregulated. The third point that the operators highlight is the implementation of the new social rate. Invertia said that the Government is finalizing the regulations that will force telecommunications operators to offer a social bonus for disadvantaged groups with few resources, and thus guarantee universal access to the internet established in the Telecommunications Law.
