Marbella Economist

The Banco de España as we know it today was founded in the late 18th century. Since then it has witnessed, and occasionally taken a leading role in, political, economic and social developments in Spain.

The following are some of the landmark events in its history:  Read more »

There’s no better way to dissect the how-tos of branding than to dig deep into the companies everybody knows and trusts. To accomplish this, Entrepreneur teamed with The Values Institute at DGWB, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based think tank that focuses on brand relationships, on a consumer survey that explored the reasons some brands manage to stay on top. Read more »

More often than not speeches made by Malaga-based politicians and business owners include somewhere the expression: “Malaga, the economic capital of Andalucía”. But to what extent is this true? Are there objective arguments and statistics to defend this statement outside the provincial boundaries?
 
Now, in the current climate, experts agree that if there is one province capable of getting Andalucía’s economic wheels rolling again, it is Malaga. The tourism industry, business initiatives, being home to the region’s biggest financial institution and the growing weight of advanced services in its productive fabric all contribute to Malaga’s economic advantage.

The Ministry of Economy has released a press release – in English, for the benefit of foreign investors – detailing additional fiscal measures undertaken by the Spanish government yesterday.

The press release gave details of the latest fiscal measures and underlined the fact that they are designed to achieve Spain’s deficit targets convened with the European Commission in the framework of the Excessive Deficit Procedure.

The measures include, among others, a significant increase in tax revenues, including VAT, corporate income tax, personal income tax and excise duties; a substantial review of the unemployment benefit regime and of social security contributions; measures to increase the efficiency of the public sector and to reduce the public sector wage bill; a frontloading of the sustainability factors in the pension system. Read more »

Your business’s Facebook Page is every bit as important as a face-to-face encounter with a customer. But some well-known retailers fail to provide adequate customer service online.

STELLAService, a New York City-based firm that rates online retail businesses for their customer service, went undercover and posted service-related questions on 20 retailers’ Facebook walls or in the comments section below the page owner’s own status updates. 

Some retailers removed the customer question from their wall without ever commenting, and another five questions remained unanswered for at least two days. Only seven businesses took the time to answer questions posted within 48 hours.  Read more »

Wondering if there’s another way out there to save money on income taxes? If you’re like many small-business owners I know, you’re ignoring a tax-saving strategy that’s eating food at your dinner table — and maybe plotting how to stay out late with friends.

Putting your children to work in your business, even if only for the summer, is one of the most underutilized tax-saving strategies today. I’ve found that many business owners simply don’t realize placing children under 18 on the payroll, or even grandchildren or adult children, is an excellent strategy to minimize tax liability. Read more »

“Our commitment to the budgetary stability targets and reforms cannot be denied”, said the President of the Government”.

While speaking in the Lower House of Parliament, the President of the Government announced a raft of measures that will be adopted “without delay” to ensure the budgetary adjustment targets are met and the path committed to at the most recent European Council is followed. Mariano Rajoy insisted that “either we all work together on achieving the same objectives or our efforts will be hollow. Either we really and truly demonstrate we are a nation that is willing to make sacrifices in order to earn ourselves a better future or our efforts will be in vain”. Read more »

With over a quarter of the working population out of a job and struggling to make ends meet, the top management of companies in the blue-chip Ibex 35 index last year awarded themselves a healthy pay hike despite an overall drop in corporate earnings while public sector workers suffered wage cuts.

According to the annual report on corporate governance released Wednesday by the National Securities Commission (CNMV), the average remuneration of the directors on the boards of the biggest 35 listed companies in Spain was up 4.4 percent at 522,000 euros from a year earlier. In the case of chairmen and chief executive officers, average wages climbed to 2.4 million euros from 2.2 million a year earlier. The average remuneration per board was up 5 percent at 7.5 million euros. Read more »

The professional and efficient lawyers and tax advisers of the Spanish law firm Arcos & Lamers Asociados would like to reproduce the definition of  “Vivienda habitual” main home residency, as this Firm has been in many occasions approached concerning  enquiries with regards to what indeed the Spanish prime tax residency is.

This concept is described at “El Texto Refundido del IRPF” Spanish Income Tax Law. This definition is a relevant issue for other Income Tax purposes. For instance the deduction of re-investment of sale price into another main prime home, that could reduce to the max any Spanish Capital Gain Tax.  Read more »

According to the Spanish labour advisors from Arcos & Lamers Asociados there are two main types of Subsidies that could be taken into account:

1-      Spanish Companies that hire employees for an indefinite period of time. These employees should priory be registered at the Spanish local official employment office (Instituto Nacional del Empleo I.N.E.M.) an interview with a Spanish Civil Servant will be held and the individual will be transferred to a company indicated by the I.N.E.M.

2-      Subsidy to promote employment for those companies that do belong to the trade sector, applicable for females or  individuals aged under 30 or above 45 years of age.  Read more »

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