The August total for successful Golden Visa applications in Portugal was just 35 but this did see the sale of real estate worth €19.6 million making the agents involved very happy indeed.
A further €2 million was spent on qualifying investments allowed more wealthy foreigners to enjoy a tax free existence in Portugal while the rest of her citizens have no similar opportunity.
As the Bank of Portugal’s governor tries to gloss over his failure to sell Novo Banco by claiming that there are other, as yet un-named bidders* from Spain waiting to negotiate, news comes in that the various court actions against the bank now exceed €1.5 billion.
Portugal’s most miserly millionaire Américo Amorim is after €179.4 million, Oak Finance, the investment vehicle set up by Goldman Sachs, wants the return of €706 million, Petróleos de Venezuela would love to see its €81 million again and the 2,500 BES depositors that were duped into switching their savings into collapsing Grupo Espírito Santo companies demand the return of €527 million.
Rental income declared by landlords to the tax authorities in 2014 has exceeded the €3 billion mark for the first time with an increase year on year of over €100 million.
The government’s measures to combat non-declaration of rental income seems slowly to be working with the number of people adding rental receipts to their tax return rising 51% in two years and the total income declared rising by €100 million.
A 23 year-old was shot in the head on Tuesday at Olhão train station.
Police are investigating the background to the incident which happened at around 18:00hrs in an area where members of the public were standing.
The costs of the aborted negotiation to sell Novo Banco can be seen in the rapidly shrinking share price of BCP and BPI, two of the banks that had to put money into the Resolution Fund to solve the crisis at BES, creating Novo Banco.
The shares of all the participating banks have recovered slightly today but overall are down with sharp declines in September during the course of negotiations for the sale of the Novo Banco, first to Anbang and then to Fosun, both of which have led to nothing.
Portugal topped the chart of all the European Union nations for increased numbers of people employed in the April to June period of this year.
While the EU average rise was 0.2% - with a slightly better 0.3% in eurozone countries – Portugal managed to increase the number of people in employment by 1.3%, according to national accounts estimates published by Eurostat.
The Minister of Solidarity and Social Security, Pedro Mota Soares, said today that the survey on the capacity of the social sector to receive refugees will be ready by the end of the month.
The aim is to "focus on the care" of refugees, through "self-contained accommodation" for each family, confirmed Lino Maia, president of the National Confederation of Solidarity Institutions.
Iceland’s WOW Air is resuming its transatlantic fare of £99 from London to Washington DC and Boston.
Each destination will have a stop in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital.
