The head of Portugal's Tax Workers Union said today that there is a VIP taxpayers list, a list that the Government and the Tax Authority denies exists and are prepared to go to court to refute the allegation that a two tier taxpayer system is in operation.
Today’s edition of Visão writes that the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Paul Nuncio, has drawn up a list of VIP taxpayers taken from media, politics, finance and business whose tax records when accessed by staff trigger an alert to show who has been looking.
The president of the Tax Workers Union, Paulo Ralha, said today that "there is no doubt that the list exists," adding "if there has been access to certain taxpayers' records an alarm is triggered and the person making the access is called in and asked to justify the enquiry."
In a statement sent to newsrooms, the Ministry of Finance states that the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs denies the magazine's allegation and that it "will sue Visão due to this false news."
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, the president of the Tax Workers Union said Nuncio is in serious denial about the list, as "every day we see proof of its existence.”
The head of the union said he only became aware of the VIP list when the divisional head of audit at the Tax and Customs Authority, Vítor Lourenço, referred to the list in a training programme for 300 tax inspectors.
According to Ralha, Vítor Lourenço announced the VIP list’s existence and later tax workers realised that a filter was in operation that lets managers know who has accessed certain taxpayer information.
The union currently is faced with 140 disciplinary proceedings against workers who have accessed names on the VIP list and have been asked to justify their queries.
The union has been saying since December 2014 that the disciplinary procedures for consulting certain tax records is just another way of putting its members under pressure after it was widely reported that Tax Authority employees were being investigated for consulting the Prime Minister's tax records.
For Paulo Ralha, the existence of this list creates a two tier system and calls into question "tax justice, the principle of the equality of citizens and sets up a situation in which a critical service of the state is placed at the service of the interests of certain people."
In a note signed by the Director General of the Tax Authority, António Brigas Afonso, the organisation "denies having received any list from the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, unlike the news published today by Visão." He had better be right.
So, a squeaky clean tax system that treats everyone equally from the Prime Minister down to the lowliest labourer, or a Salazar-esque internal spying service that has set up triggers to alert managers if a VIP is having his records looked at by staff?
Finanças inspector linked to Swiss bank account
It will not help the mood of tax workers that one of the team leaders from the Finanças General Inspectorate, who previously held senior positions in several public companies, is one of the Portuguese names that had money in HSBC Switzerland.
Filomena Martinho Bacelar, current "team leader in an operational directorate" in the Finanças General Inspectorate may be asked some difficult questions if she has not been declaring income from offshore funds
In addition to being a top figure in the Finanças Inspectorate reporting directly to the Minister of Finance, Bacelar previously held positions in companies including Metro do Porto, Águas de Portugal, ANA, Transtejo, Docapesca and the Santarém District Hospital.
His name is associated with the accounts at HSBC Suisse where USD2.3 million was tucked away.
The money is connected to British Virgin Isles offshore companies, Pernell Enterprises Limited and Bordel Investments Holdings Limited.
