"It disgusts me, the idea of handing out premium cars," said the political commentator Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa this weekend.
While agreeing with a policy of incentives for taxpayers to request proper receipts for purchases, the well-respected pundit said that a luxury car lottery was "repugnant" and it embodies the antithesis of everything that Pedro Passos Coelho had vowed to do.
In his weekly political review on TVI, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was asked by a viewer if the car lottery would give the Government the result it was after.
Marcelo began by saying that "the Government says yes. It says that it will receive between €600 million and €800 million in additional taxes for an expenditure of just €10 million, it’s a good deal.”
On the moral front the commentator could not agree with the method, "I confess that the idea is very effective, but I am repulsed by the idea of delivering prizes of high-class automobiles."
Asked why he has this objection, de Sousa replied, "because when this government came in Passos Coelho said he was going to change the habits of the Portuguese. He would bring a cultural revolution to Portugal and try to change bad habits.”
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that a better and more coherent incentive would have been to give tax rebates or savings certificates or cancel people’s tax arrears, “but no, he is giving away luxury cars.”
The new lottery was approved by the government last Thursday and presented in a special press conference by the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs who managed to confuse the media with last minute complications and variations on the original theme.
The first draw will take place the first week of April based on any January invoices that correctely are registered.
Top of the range cars will be on offer to the lucky winners, no cash alternative has been suggested, an alternative that would suit many faced with the insurance, tax and upkeep costs associated with a premium car.
