The Balearic government's budget for 2019 will be 5,458 million euros, the highest ever and nine per cent more than the current year's. There will be just under 450 million euros of additional spending.
Finance minister Catalina Cladera said yesterday that there had been wide consensus between PSOE, Més and Podemos, adding that the budget will follow a policy of "redistributing wealth by taking advantage of the economic bonanza".
Cladera stressed the amount that will be spent on five areas of social policy - 3,076 million euros in total for health, education, social services, employment and housing. The health service, which has the largest single budget, will have 1,726 million, education rises to 1,000 million for the first time, and social services, employment and housing will receive respectively 180 million, 112 million and 58 million. The construction of social housing is an aspect of the latter.
On the revenue side a comparatively minor contributor is the tourist tax. The forecast is for 118.5 million euros from this, a decrease of 1.25% compared with this year. A far more significant contributor will be income tax, estimated at 1,148 million euros, an increase of almost 15%. Half of the revenue will be via the financing redistribution system for the regions, to which revenues from certain taxes collected locally, such as income tax, are components.
Taxes will generally be as they were, with a small decrease to five per cent from eight for stamp duty on properties valued at 200,000 euros or less where these properties are people's main residences.