Portugal’s taxpayers are working hard to pay off the debts incurred by a series of fiscally incompetent and profligate governments.
Tax revenue last year beat all records at €38.984 billion, €1.9 billion more than 2014’s take, up a selfless 5%.
Data from the General Directorate of the State Budget failed to include a ‘thank you’ for a tax performance second to none by the nation's companies, consumers and workers.
Indirect tax receipts such as VAT were up just under 6% and direct taxes were up 4%, boosted by corporation tax receipts which rose 16% as the economy started to improve.
The delightfully named ‘extraordinary contributions’ from the energy sector were up 77.4% amid groans of pain and the contribution from Portugal’s beloved banking sector was up 13.5%, more than this being spent on bailing out Banif and covering up the Bank of Portugal’s other expensive mistakes.
Income tax eased by 1.3% due to decreased revenue from capital and the reduction in withholding taxes which lopped €400 million off the 2014 figure.
Despite the record tax income enjoyed by the Passos Coelho government, tax revenue in 2015 did not reach its growth target of 5.1% mostly due to a large number of VAT refunds that had to be paid out due to some over-enthusiastic guesstimates by the Tax Authority, keen as ever to overcharge its customers on pain of forfeiture, while returning customers’ money as slowly as humanly possible.
