New taxes for rubbish

A couple of years back there used to be an "Economic Activity Tax" - that's right - a tax that you had to pay just because you wanted to do some activity. In theory, every activity you offered clients was subject to a different tax, as the tax department hadn't contemplated the idea of people being multiskilled.
The former government under the Partido Popular decided to eliminate the tax - saying that the tax was unjust. No criticism with that. Unfortunately the tax was a major source of revenue for local government, responsible for levying and administering the tax. In removing this tax no adjustment was made to make up for the shortfall in local government income.
In an effort to make up some of the shortfall, the local government of Barcelona recently decided to introduce a rubbish tax for the self-employed. Somebody has put their finger in the air and come up with the magic sum of €125 per year as the minimum levy, regardless of what you do. Like many others, I've written to complain - my work is 100% virtual.... working from a home office. I seldom use the metro and other city services that are subsidised for all and now I'm expected to pay an additional tax for the rubbish I generate. I could spring clean my office once every two years and pay about €30.00 for a commercial rubbish sack (1 cubic metre) and share the expense with neighbours wanting to spring clean their offices at the same time.

Needless to say, I've had to pay the tax in advance - after receiving a bill at the beginning of July. Now here's an example of efficiency - I wasn't able to pay the bill at the bank because it had expired (issue date 28/05 - delivery date 07/07 - payment due within 30 days of issue date). In other words, the city council is sending out invoices that are already overdue. Another visit to the City Council to get a new invoice and another trip to the bank. No compensation for these mistakes - and if you want to get information by phone, the charge is €0.55 per 3 minutes.