A driver who died two years ago is among 50 motorists that have been targeted by the tax office for serial non-payment of tolls on Portugal's formerly free motorways.
Jornal do Noticias revealed that 800 offenses have been logged against these die-hard toll evaders and that the tax office has lined them up for the maximum force collection process whereby their assets are to be seized and auctioned off to settle their debts.
The problem with one target is that he is already dead and has been for two years so his lawyer is claiming that he is unable to comply with the increasingly assertive demands for payment.
The lawyer handling the case, Sandra Azevedo, argues anyway that the IRS action is "unconstitutional," since the offences claimed by the Tax Administration concern journeys on SCUT routes and are not subject to any form of contract, hence are not enforceable and that the IRS is violating the 'equality, justice and proportionality' principles of Portugal's tax law
With regard to her dead client, Azevedo argues that this process really should be filed, adding that for the drivers that are still alive, although the state performs the billing, the collection process is handed over to private entities without any public utility remit and they are using collection methods that should be confined to the State administration.
Sandra Azevedo will be hailed as a legal and tax heroine if she wins this argument and is set to appeal to the Administrative Court if she loses the first round in Braga court, should it ever recommence hearings as Braga is sufffering from a bad case if Citius, the computer system which has frozen the Republic's judicial system.
Azevedo adds that "the tolls have nothing to do with any of the existing taxes in the legal system," and that the current collection system "hands over the public interest to the private sector which is a clear violation of the principle of tax equality.”
Many hope Azevedo is right.
