Despite widespread closures of tax offices up and down the country, the taxman is on a roll. “Coercive seizures”, as they are called in Portugal, went through the roof in 2013, with tax offices bringing in a record €1.9 billion, writes Correio da Manhã – millions more than government paymasters had hoped for.
Property seizures involved 123,588 homes and buildings, and, as the paper points out, these only come into play “as a last resort, when the debtor has no other form of assets”.
“With regard to salaries,” the paper continued, “532,042 were seized by the authorities”, on the understanding that only a sixth of anyone’s salary was deducted every month.
Elsewhere, the tax authorities sent out 9.1 million electronic messages to debtors, advising them of notices to pay.
