An unresolved long-standing controversy: the Supreme Court once again classifies charges for municipal drinking water supplies as rates, even when the service is managed by a private company

The wording of article 2(2)(a) of the General Tax Act 58/2003 (abbrev. LGT) led to a wide-ranging debate on the legal nature of payments for the municipal supply of drinking water, as it classifies as rates those taxes whose taxable event is the provision of mandatory services under public law, but then adds in the second paragraph, introduced during the parliamentary procedure following two amendments by the Catalan Parliamentary Group, that «services shall be considered to be provided and activities shall be considered to be carried out under public law when done by any of the means provided in administrative legislation for the management of public services and such service is owned by a public body»…