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The spokesman of the IU-Greens Municipal Group, Pedro Sosa, assures that Lorca have the right to know how much their City Council is not receiving for exemptions that could be dedicated to public investment and not to promote business of the clergy

Izquierda Unida-Verdes will send a petition to the next Municipal Plenary so that in the portal of Transparencia del Ayuntamiento, the list of immovable, urban and rural property exempt from Property Tax (IBI) is published, stating the amount, holder -except individuals-and the legal norm in which the measure is protected.

The spokesman of the IU-Greens Municipal Group, Pedro Sosa, has appealed to equality before the law - especially before the tax - to claim that the Catholic Church pays the IBI, "at least of properties not dedicated to character functions social or pastoral, but to business ".

The mayor has pointed out the importance of ending not only the possible "unfair competition" that could be produced by the commercial use of ecclesiastical properties, but that "Lorca have the right to know how much the City Council is failing to perceive by exemptions which could be dedicated to public investment and not to promote business of the clergy. "

"If your properties are geared towards profit, pay like everyone else," Sosa said, for whom the municipal government team has an obligation to "offer public information" for the sake of transparency in the local administration.

Pedro Sosa recalled that the agreement between the Spanish State and the Holy See on economic affairs of 1979 establishes that total and permanent exemption from taxes will not reach the income that the Church could obtain for the exercise of economic exploitation or derived from its assets, when its use is transferred.

This is also established in a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (TEU), which last June, ruled that the tax exemption on municipal taxes in this case the ICIO enjoyed by the Catholic Church in Spain can be a "illegal" State aid if the activities carried out are of an economic nature.

In that judgment, which originates in a dispute between a school of Piarist parents and the Municipality of Getafe, the Grand Chamber of the Court recalls that "any activity consisting in offering goods or services in a given market constitutes an economic activity" and that "the fact that the supply of products and services is made non-profit-making does not prevent an entity carrying out such operations on the market from being considered as an undertaking when that offer competes with those of other for-profit operators."

"It is important that the City Council fiscalize property not dedicated to religious purposes, such as housing, parking or commercial premises to ensure the constitutional principles of state secularity and equality, and for us to really be all Hacienda," concluded Sosa .

Source: IU-verdes Lorca