Parliament has approved a Left Bloc proposal that the Bank of Portugal must release the names of all those who took advantage of controversial tax amnesties in 2005, 2010 and 2012 which enabled citizens to repatriate offshore funds without triggering tax payments.
The names will be made available to Finanças whose investigators carefully can check out the financial background of each person involved.
In a further blow to the Bank of Portugal, obsessed with ‘banking secrecy’ when it involves the rich and free and easy with information when it involves the ordinary citizen, the Tax Authority also will have access to all the information relating to offshore transfers up to 31 December, 2018.
The report must be with the Treasury during the first half of 2019.
The Bank of Portugal soon will be compelled to share this information with the Treasury, having invoked ‘banking secrecy’ as its reason to conceal just the type of account holder that the Treasury is interested in.
