The Deputy General Secretary of the PS this Wednesday classified the SDP’s fiscal reform proposal as a “hoax”, pointing out the “seven deadly sins” and stressing that the socialist government has cut taxes and is not taking lessons on the matter.
“For PS, this set of proposals comes down to deceiving Portuguese men and women,” João Torres told a press conference at the PS national headquarters in Lisbon, believing that these measures are “misleading and not in line with those that should be priorities countries”.
In response to this package, the Deputy Secretary General of the PS pointed to the “seven deadly sins.”
“It is inconsistent, it is based on lies about state appropriation of excess tax revenues, it is overly regressive, it misleads the youngest, it fails to meet the country’s challenges and productivity problems, it undermines workers’ contribution careers and even their protection, and it limits the state’s ability to respond to more complex moments and situations of an unexpected or even exceptional nature,” he listed.
The Socialist believed that “the SDP has arrived belatedly in this debate about cutting the IRS in the country” and defended that “all Portuguese are well aware of the history of the SDP in relation to the IRS, of brutal tax increases.” objecting that the government has been “writing off taxes every year since 2015”.
João Torres also defended that “PS does not take the lessons of taxation and lowering the IRS PSD”, arguing that the government has “consistently lowered, in a balanced and socially fair and equitable manner, the IRS for workers”.
“The Portuguese know that they can count on PS in lowering the IRS,” he pointed out, pointing out that “as early as this year, taking into account the state budget for 2023, the IRS is lowered” and “taking into account the rules that were in force in 2015, today the Portuguese are paying two billion euros less than they were paying under PSD management rules.”
The Socialist leader emphasized that the socialist government had also implemented “measures to support families and companies”, calling it “immoral to say that the state appropriated excess tax revenues”, specifying that last year the support was “5.7 billion euros, which significantly exceeds the surplus €4.4 million in tax revenue” and that this option is maintained this year.
“The SDP is trying to instill a myth, a lie, a lie that the state is misappropriating resources that actually belong to all of its citizens,” he criticized.
On Monday, SDP President Luis Montenegro launched a “global tax reform agenda” that includes “five urgent measures,” including a cut in IRS rates later this year at all levels except for the latest measure. this would be funded by surplus tax revenue.
The Deputy General Secretary of the PS today accused the Social Democrats of wanting to “lower taxes on the highest wages” and also proposed “to divert revenues and wages to allowances”, saying the country’s productivity problems “cannot be solved with wages”. “. awards”.
João Torres also believed that the Social Democrats’ proposals undermined “workers’ careers and their social protection by introducing exemptions from the single social tax in the form of productivity bonuses.”
As for the PS, the SDP made a “monumental somersault” and was “deeply incompatible” with these proposals, now due to “an explanation to its constituents” who in the last legislative elections voted in favor of “a strategy prioritizing the reduction of the IRC”.
When asked how the PS would vote on these proposals when they were debated in the Assembly of the Republic, in September the Assistant Secretary General did not vote, replying that the party would evaluate the proposals “in detail” and insisted that they had been analyzed so far. represent “a sham for the Portuguese, a mistake especially for the younger generation, and this is not the way the country should go.”
Regarding the PSD’s proposal to introduce into law a mechanism by which parliament could decide what to do with the budget surplus, João Torres considered it a “structurally wrong” measure, “strongly limiting the state’s ability to intervene and respond to exceptional circumstances”. nature”.
FM (FPB) // JPS
Lusa/The End
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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