With increasing focus on Portugal’s upcoming 2017 State Budget, stories are already being leaked to the press on likely changes. IVA (VAT), we’re told today, will be “a priority”, with alterations in the pipeline designed to take the pressure off businesses.
Talking in Lisbon today, Fernando Rocha Andrade, secretary of state for fiscal affairs (the same cited in the recent Galp freebie-flight controversy) explained that “when businesses, due to taxes, have to perform yet more duties that cost hours of work, involve guarantees, lead to the need for credit, etc. all this involves additional costs to the function of the economy that do not translate into any kind of income”.
Thus the government is intent on looking into these costs, and finding ways of reducing them.
Rocha Andrade was speaking at an event to mark “30 years of IVA in Portugal”, and refused to go much further, as he said he did not want to pre-empt the measures to be revealed mid-October.
“We are talking about accessory duties, on one hand, and about moments where the tax is paid to alleviate the necessity of businesses constituting guarantees or having to anticipate (IVA) payments on the basis of income that they have not yet received,” he added.
Lusa has run the story quoting Andrade as speaking for the government.
