Website for payment of rates, fines etc launched

Joan Collins TAXPAYERS can now pay their rates and fines via the internet through the local tax website, whose address is www.contribucions. org. The objective of the website is to save time for Balearic citizens and create a paperless administration, according to the Balearic Minister for Economy, Tax and Innovation, Lluis Ramis de Ayreflor, who presented the new portal yesterday. He said that, with this website, it is hoped to improve access to information and to payments of rates etc. for citizens. The site will give information about rates and other municipal taxes and how to make payments via the internet. TAXPAYERS “It is estimated that the site will be accessed by some 300'000 taxpayers and that the number of bills coming to us through this website will be some 900'000”, said Ayreflor. The new site allows payments through all collaborating banks (Sa Nostra, La Caixa and Banca March) via the electronic bank service for taxes on property, businesses, construction, installation and works, special taxes and contributions, and vehicle taxes, amongst others. Ayreflor added that up until now the only way to pay these taxes was for the citizen to go to the council offices and queue up. At the same time, this website offers other information of interest, such as the fiscal calendar (when taxes are due), where the payment offices are situated, the taxes to be paid to each local entity, as well as the deadline for voluntary payment. It is expected that these and other applications will be also available from 2007 on mobile telephones which have WAP/UMTS technology, said Ayreflor. For his part, the director general for the Tax department, Jorge Sainz, added that the new site “has a high level of accessibility”, as it can be accessed audibly by those with reading disabilities. “It is the first website in Spain which offers this type of service”, said Sainz. Finally, he commented on the other measures which have been taken to guarantee access for disabled people, such as “the user can increase or decrease the sources used on the web via the controls on the bar at the top of the page, some graphics can be converted into text and you can access things quickly via the keyboard”.