Tax from house sales in the Loulé area will raise €27 million for the council’s coffers next year.
This is the figure in the 2017 council budget under the heading IMT, the municipal tax on real estate sales.
Last year, Loulé council received more IMT revenue than any other of the region’s municipalities with an inflow of €25.8 million, beating 2nd place Albufeira which received around €18 million.
According to the Loulé budget for 2017, the council expects to receive €104.4 million this year, which when added to last year’s expected surplus of about €22.5 million, gives mayor Vítor Aleixo around €127 million to spend this municipal election year.
As Loulé council is so well funded due to this unearned property sales tax each year, it claims now to be setting lower taxes in other areas such as annual property rates with IMI set this year at 0.3%, a coefficient drop of 21% for homeowners, albeit from a high start point.
The council, mainly as this is now an election year, will be spreading this money among the poor through "an increase in support to families and social support institutions by supplying medicines and buying school books."
In terms of investment, the council says its priority is sorting out the local water and sewage networks, repairing and upgrading roads and paths, fixing the music building in Loulé and constructing a new GNR station.
One area the mayor would do well to sort out is the continuing abusive situation at Infralobo where this municipal company, run by mayor Aleixo’s brother-in-law, has a history of bullying and harassment of those of its water customers who refused to pay the eye-watering ‘bedroom tax’ to justify increases in water bills.
During 'Water Wars,' pensioners were left with no water and the poor relationships between supplier and customer collapsed in a heap of litigation, bullying and aggression.
For some householders, this battle has ended up in court, a totally unnecessary and expensive outcome due solely to the intransigence and arrogance of a service company which had quietly dropped the word ‘service’ but had failed to tell anyone.
It’s all very well the council delighting in the IMT income to be received over the course of 2017, it has not had to lift a finger to receive this money, but while it condones by its own inactivity the bullying of captive Infralobo customers, Loulé council may expect to receive short shrift in the local press.
