The Inspector General of Finance has confirmed that there was indeed a VIP Taxpayers list and calls for some sort of disciplinary action to be taken against those officials involved in drawing up the list whose existence was denied at senior level until uncovered by media investigation.
The Inspector Generral's report concluded that within the treasury there indeed was a system to monitor and protect access to the data of various big-wigs, using an "unfounded, arbitrary and discriminatory" scheme.
An alarm that was triggered whenever a tax worker accessed a name on a select list. This system was in operation between 29 September 2014 and 10 March 2015, and was found in the month following a decision to stop the alert process, on February 23, 2015.
The inspectorate led by Vítor Braz concluded that the personal data of four taxpayers was monitored, namely the President of the Republic, Cavaco Silva, the Prime Minister Passos Coelho, the deputy prime minister, Paulo Portas and the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Paulo Nuncio.
For the inspectorate, this alarm system was arbitrary, discriminatory and manifestly inefficient and ineffective in protecting the confidentiality of tax payers, according to a report of the findings.
The IGF also confirms that the Secretary of State Paulo Nuncio was completely unaware that the list existed, nor that he was on it.
In March this year, Portugal's Visão magazine gained access to a Tax Authority audit report which confirmed the creation of a warning system to prevent unauthorised access to the tax data of a limited number of special taxpayers including politicians, businessmen and sports personalities.
The document, dated November 28, 2014, showed that the former deputy director of taxation José Maria Pires, who resigned, sanctioned the VIP List proposal and the warning alert scheme within the tax department’s computer system under the direction of José Manuel Morujão.
Acacio Pinto, the director of audit at the Tax Authority gave a positive opinion to the various proposals, including the creation of a controlled access system for a restricted number of special taxpayers.
The audit found that, between January 1st and September 26th last year, the prime minister’s tax records were accessed 106 times by 34 employees around the country.
As a result, 23 of the workers concerned were hauled in front of upper management in a disciplinary proicedure to explain why they had looked at the PM’s tax affairs.
Denials that such a list existed started to become scarce as the Inspector General of Finance's team started to uncover the truth.
