A new shock hidden in the small-print of the government’s proposed 2015 budget is the raising of the status of tax officials so that they can act like police. With the new status comes a new level of punishments.
As Diário de Notícias explains (today) it means that if people insult a member of staff at a tax office, they can be liable to fines and even be sent to prison.
“Harming, insulting or simply disobeying the orders of tax office staff will lead to punishments of a fine or prison term that can go to five years,” writes the paper.
The proposal within the State Budget for 2015 is for tax office workers to be “invested with the powers of public authority”, “as per the terms of the Penal Code”.
The decision comes in a year when the government is doing everything in its power to combat fraud and tax evasion.
It also comes after tax office workers were reported to have started taking martial arts classes to cope with “bad reactions” that the public has been having since the increase of the country’s tax burden.
While online readers have reacted angrily to the news, tax office staff have applauded it.
António Frazão, an inspector working out of Portimão, told DN that hardly a day goes by without staff receiving verbal insults.
An official of the tax office workers’ union STI, Frazão began organising self-defence workshops for colleagues in 2012, “such was the level of despair” among the tax office staff.
But, while welcoming the government’s plan, STI president Paulo Ralha says he doubts whether it will stop people from being unpleasant to the man or woman facing them across the counter.
“People will continue to be aggressive because they associate us with the misery of certain debts which should not be our responsibility to recover,” he told Lusa news agency.
Aggression has been particularly acute since the introduction of motorway tolls on previously ‘free’ highways, he added.
Meantime, online reaction to the news has been scathing with readers suggesting taxpayers will need to take lawyers with them every time they go to the tax office.
