Govern runs into the lack of data to collect CO ₂ tax on motorcycles

The Catalan government has run into the problem of the lack of data when charging a tax on motorcycles for their carbon dioxide emissions since it does not know how much CO2 is emitted by 82.6% of the motorcycles that circulate in Catalonia.

The Government has approved on Tuesday the preliminary report to introduce changes in the tax on CO2 emissions of mechanical traction vehicles, and in this report recognizes that problem of lack of data.

Specifically, the Government admits that only 17.4% of the motorcycles that circulate in Catalonia (whether two-wheeled, two-wheeled with sidecar, motor tricycles and heavy quadricycles) have official data on CO2 emissions, which mainly include those manufactured since 2008, he clarifies.

“The preliminary report underlines the need to establish a method that determines carbon dioxide emissions for the remaining 82.6%”, and more taking into account that according to the law amending that Catalan tax approved in 2019, “this type of vehicle -motorcycles- will merit the tax on December 31, 2020”.

Sources from the Department of Economy have assured Efe that, in the case of cars and vans, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center was used to determine with a formula the CO2 emissions of those vehicles for which no data were available, and add that in the case of motorcycles some method will also be sought to calculate CO2 emissions.

The preliminary report that the Government has approved this Tuesday also plans to introduce a tax benefit – it does not specify the amount – to vehicles considered classic.

However, the Government assures that it will be “similar” to the one that already exists for vehicles that have a historical vehicle registration, which are exempt from paying the tax.

The Generalitat estimates that in Catalonia there are about 10,000 vehicles considered classics.

The text of this preliminary report will now be exposed to public consultation for 30 days on the website of the Department of Economy and on the Portal Participa de la Generalitat.

At the end of April, the Catalan government was already forced to approve, due to the pandemic, a postponement of both the provisional and definitive registers of this tax and the deadlines for collection and settlement of this tax.

As for cars and vans, it set the final register for March 2021, taking into account that the tax corresponds to the year already accrued in 2019.

In this way, the tax should be settled from May 2021 in the case of cars and vans.

As for motorcycles, it established the objective of having the definitive register ready in February 2022, since motorcycles accrue this tax from December 31 of this year, all this to aspire to start collecting the tax on motorcycles from April 2022.

Last October the Government estimated that it could enter about 150 million a year with the tax on CO2 emissions from vehicles, which should affect about 3.6 million cars and vans and about 500,000 motorcycles.

On April 20, the Minister of Territory of the Generalitat, Damià Calvet, assured the Catalan Parliament that the CO2 tax corresponding to 2020 would be reduced proportionally to the duration of the state of alarm.

It is a finalist tax and, therefore, its collection will serve to nourish in equal parts two funds: the climate fund and the natural heritage fund.

Source: The Vanguard