Now the discussion becomes interesting for municipalities where there are ports that embark thousands of passengers and cruise passengers every day. And where politics does not reach, administrative justice arrives. And if it is not a regional administrative court, but directly the Council of State, the ruling takes on more than considerable importance. The judges of the Council of State have ruled that the tax on passenger embarkations applied by a single municipality must be considered more than legitimate, especially if the local authority is in a condition of financial distress.
In the case in question, the highest administrative court ruled on the appeal that had been filed by a shipping company against the decision of the Municipality of Salerno, taken two years ago, to apply a tax of one euro and fifty cents for each passenger embarked or disembarked at the local seaport. The appellants had contested the fact that the tax was not proportional to the length of the route and the type of service, considering that some passenger transport services are carried out mainly to meet the needs of companies and workers.
Well, the Council of State, with a ruling destined to set a precedent, sided entirely with the Municipality of Salerno, emphasizing that the shipping company failed to provide any evidence to demonstrate that the application of the tax could have negative repercussions for the economy of the entire maritime sector. After all, we are talking about an amount equivalent to the cost of a coffee taken at the bar and that compensates for the inconveniences and damages suffered by municipalities dealing with the continuous transit of thousands and thousands of vehicles, which have a significant impact in terms of overall livability, environment, and use of assets for whose maintenance only residents pay.
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The administrative judges also gave a thumbs down to the protest regarding the lack of consultation with the operators concerned by the Salerno municipality, underlining that “the rules on participation do not apply to the activity of the public administration aimed at issuing normative, general administrative acts.”
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