The out-of-touch world of Portugal’s Tax Authority has seen the boundaries of its own mad-cap standards once again challenged from within.
The latest ploy from the taxman is to insist that the recipient of goods to tootle off to Finanças to settle the bill, rather than paying the supplier, if the supplier owes the taxman money.
The new Guia de Transporte control system can identify which service providers have tax debts and Finanças can demand that it receives the payment, rather than the supplier.
Similarly, the new style tills linked to the Tax Authority can be rigged to inform the buyer that their bill for a purchase must not be settled with the seller, but with the tax office.
The chairman of the Tax Workers Union, Paulo Ralha, commented rather politely that this scheme is "unacceptable and dangerous."
To Ralha, "this scheme is applied across all economic activities. It can happen that a customer goes to a clothes shop, a shoe shop or tobaccanist, and if that store has a debt, the buyer is told to go to the Finanças to settle the bill.
"This is a situation that currently being experienced by several companies in the catering sector, but it is spreading to all economic activities."
The government professes to be the friend of business but its behaviour in introducing more and more red tape and rigorous systems simply result in fewer invoices being issued and a growth in the grey market for goods and services.
