The Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Paul Nuncio, claims that more than 140,000 taxpayers have made payments under the recently announced tax amnesty.
There has been "significant interest" from debtors keen to pay outstanding demands before getting into further trouble with court processes and interest charged.
A week after the ‘extraordinary settlement of debts’ scheme came into force, the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs said that "the results achieved in the first week clearly exceed the initial expectations of the Government."
"The value of tax collection documents issued to date already exceed €143 million, 35% to individual taxpayers and 65 % for companies," said Nuncio considering that these results "far outweigh the initial expectations."
The settlement of debts scheme allows total or partial payment of outstanding tax and social security amounts without having to pay interest or the cost of any current recovery process from Finanças. Any fines are reduced to 10% of the legal minimum.
The tax amnesty covering those payments that should have been made in August should haul in around €700 million, of which €450-€500 million is destined for the taxman. This extraordinary revenue will go some way in helping the Government meet its deficit target of 5.5% this year.
The state currently is owed €7,8 billion in uncollected taxes - about 4.6 % of GDP - made up of overdue income tax and VAT, and social security payments from businesses and individual taxpayers.
The Government says that this is the last chance for those who want to settle their debts, with Paul Nuncio bringing in tougher new measures from January 2014 to combat tax evasion.
