Taxpayers have had no qualms in entering the Fatura da Sorte, or ‘Win an Audi,’ sweepstake but now must inform the tax department if they want to remain anonymous.
Up until now the winners have remained unknown unless they particularly want their relatives and friends to know they have just won a brand new Audi worth up to €51,000.
To enter the draw, the citizen logs receipts for purchases on the Tax Authority’s website, when it is having a functioning day, and then is in with a chance of winning a spanking new Audi in a weekly draw.
Winners now have five working days within which to tell the taxman to keep quiet about their windfall or everyone can see their name on the Tax Authority's website.
Starved of publicity by shy winners in this bizarre scheme, the government has gone to great effort to change the law governing the sweepstake, and has amended the section about winning numbers - "once the prize is claimed, the Tax and Customs Authority discloses the name of the winning on the Finanças website, unless stated otherwise within five working days after the prize is claimed."
The number of invoices correctly submitted on the Taxman’s website has risen to 300 million as at the end of June this year, 46% more than in the same period last year, according to a delighted Ministry of Finance.
The scheme enables tax inspectors to match receipts given to customers for their purchases with income submissions from retailers. It also encourages shoppers to ask for receipts for all purchases, however small.
The head of Portugal’s Institute of Chartered Accountants commented on launch that the 'Fatura da Sorte’ lottery should instead have offered financial benefits to winners rather than an expensive imported German car. This is why he is an accountant.
Domingues Azevedo, as chairman of the Institute, criticised the 'disguised advertising' that the government has given to Audi and said that money or tax rebates would have been more appropriate.
In a normal lottery week, one Audi A4 is given away in the ‘under €39,360’ category. There then are two special draws, one in the summer and one at Christmas time. In the special draws the prize is an Audi A6 with a value ‘equal to or less than €51,660.’
The boss of consumer champion DECO accused the government of trying to turn taxpayers into tax collectors.
Jorge Morgado's said "no society can live without a correctly administered tax system to pay for health, education and roads," but is critical of this new emphasis on the buyer to do the tax department’s job, turning the public into “tax collectors and monitoring agents."
When the scheme was launched, Vasco Guimares of Portugal's Professional Association of Tax and Customs Inspectors made it clear, "what the Tax Authority wants is another tool for monitoring people’s expenditure against their declared income."
"There are two objectives that the IRS has, an educational one for people to get in the habit of registering their numbers when buying something, and a systems management one so the Tax Authority can build up a consumption profile of taxpayers," added Guimares.
The president of the Court of Auditors, Oliveira Martins, considered it a ‘fundamental role’ of the taxpayer to prevent corruption, "unless we have citizens’ collaboration we will never get the evidence needed to counter these (evasion) problems. Without the active contribution of taxpayers there will be no improvements."
Whatever individual views are, the scheme appears to be working in that more receipts are being registered. Whether a cost:benefit analysis at the end of year 1 will show that the scheme is financially worthwhile remains to be seen.
Those that fail to win a car in this sweepstake and decide to spend €35,000 or more on a new vehicle are now to be investigated as a matter of course by the tax office which will have the right to access and look at citizens' bank records to see where the money came from and whether the car buyer is declaring his or her income correctly. The limit used to be €50,000.
