A taxpayer in Fafe, Braga has waiting for a year and a half for a refund from Finanças.
The man has been waiting since April 2013 for the return of €76,808 incorrectly demanded by the Tax Authority, and is fed up with waiting. So much so that he has instructed a lawyer to proceed with a criminal complaint.
According to his lawyer, the case goes back to 2009, when Finanças in Fafe sent the man a tax demand and threatened to seize his property of he did not pay up.
He was fortunate in that he had the money to pay the state, but this was all he could get his hands on, and immediately challenged the tax demand in court.
According to the lawyer Carlos Caneja Amorim, the judicial decision on the matter became final on the date of judgement and the tax office was to repay the man immediately.
Alleging 'computer problems' for a year and a half, the tax office has denied the man the use of his own money and has caused stress and worry.
"When a taxpayer is late by one day, he is charged fines, penalties and interest and is seen by the Portuguese State as a person to go after, but when the state loses court cases and is told to return taxpayers’ money collected illegally it creates mechanisms and undue delays,’ said the lawyer.
Amorim said today that his client, a 45-year old father of two young children, "is desperate over the situation" and has been forced to emigrate to Angola.
After the man successfully challenged the tax demand’s legality the Tax Authority appealed and lost, appealing again to the Supreme Administrative Court, which upheld the taxpayer's claim that clearly he was right and the state was wrong.
This should have been an end to it but the taxpayer now has been waiting for a cheque for 18 months.
Legally the state has nowhere else to go, yet it refuses to give the money back.
Comments
8 years ago a taxi driver smashed into our (just bought) new car at high speed on the E.N.125 while we were waiting behind another car that was turning left, wrote off our vehicle and put us in hospital.
His insurance company (Zurich) refused to pay up because the taxi driver, just like most Portuguese, refused to admit it was his fault.
We took Zurich to court, which took 3 years, won the case and Zurich still refused to pay up. We took them to court again, another 2 years, the court sent the bailiffs but Zurich kept hiding their money. 8 years later still no money, we can't afford a new car!
@Ric
I have to agree with Enid, the Portuguese can start calling themselves civilised when they stop chaining up dogs and thousands of them go out shooting anything that moves every Sunday morning!
It's also no wonder there's a black market when the taxation and bureaucracy in this country makes running a legit business virtually impossible. Why be legit when you know the court system is a joke.
@Enid
Burglars are NOT investigated, we were burgled twice and knew who it was! The GNR were not interested on both occasions.
Portugal + computers = disaster
Portugal + European Union = disaster
Wake up people you are not in paradise. Actually some of the locals i speak with would be happy for Portugal to be taken over by Spain as many have given up with this country. Where do we go from here, i give up.
Your last sentence is xenophobic.
Granted a lot of the middle to upper ranking public servants are corrupt and not fit for office but to 'tar' the whole race is bordering on being racist!!!
This again goes straight to the nub of whether Portugal was sufficiently developed to be allowed into the EU. So many of its offices of state are not connected and in some cases - as with the Police (PJ,PSP and GNR) - are intentionally not connected so as to allow gaps between them for the elite to escape.
Consider for example the summer fires. Costing Portugal hundreds of millions of euros largely unnecessarily.
A suspect arsonist, if 'caught' by the GNR is handed to the nearest Public Prosecutor (Ministerio Publico). Not to the specialist fire investigators of the PJ.
And then one in 4 arsonists disappears from history. Processed into an investigation as 'of interest' ... then never named as being prosecuted, released or cleared. Too important to be bothered again ?
Burglars can be investigated or not - by the GNR or PJ. and so on ...
So allowing this culture of endless corruption, dishonesty, fraud, misuse of office. etc
But then the Portuguese never were 'civilised'. Salazar did not stop any development.