The president of the Provincial Council of Salamanca, Javier Iglesias, together with the representatives of Unicaja, Manuel Rubio, head of Commercial Banking of Castilla y León Sur, and Cristina Sánchez, manager of Institutional Business of Castilla y León, have entered into a treasury transaction in the form of a credit account, with an available limit of 34 million euros, to make available to the municipalities of the province the expected collection of their taxes in the year 2024.
The purpose of this operation, which is increased by 2 million euros with respect to last year, is to meet the advances to the Local Entities that the autonomous agency REGTSA (Organismo Autónomo de Recaudación y Gestión Tributaria de la Diputación de Salamanca) has committed to those taxes whose management and collection competence has been delegated to it by the 362 municipalities of the province, providing them with liquidity from the beginning of the year and throughout the year.
With the formalization of the agreement with Unicaja, a first drawdown, corresponding to the advances for the first four months of 2023, is considered, for an amount of €17 million. REGTSA will reimburse the amounts advanced, up to a maximum of €34 million, to the bank before 31 December 2024.
In addition to the transaction’s financial conditions offered by Unicaja, prior a public bidding process, the bank will be responsible for the collection management of the more than 780,000 bills paid by direct debit to the REGTSA agency of the Provincial Council among all the banking entities, as well as for the management of the returns of those bills, so that REGTSA will only have Unicaja as interlocutor.
The Provincial Council of Salamanca, through its president, Javier Iglesias, underlines the importance of "making available to local councils, especially when their economic capacity is limited, financial liquidity tools that facilitate their daily management and the provision of services to their citizens".
In this regard, it should be noted that the suitability of this measure is the evolution experienced in the advances made from REGTSA in each annual exercise, going from 45.6 million euros in 2020 to more than 50 million euros in 2023.
Manuel Rubio, regional manager director of Commercial Banking in Castilla y León Sur of Unicaja, stressed the commitment of the bank with the region, its provinces and its institutions, and has reminded to the Provincial Council and the various municipalities of the bank’s availability to meet their financing needs and to cover other types of financial services.
