PS classifies PSD’s tax ideas as a “real political somersault”

PS leader Porfirio Silva on Tuesday called the PSD leader’s ideas on taxation a “real political somersault” on Tuesday, accusing him of not realizing that the Portuguese economy has undergone a more skill-based structural transformation.

“Ideas [do PSD] about taxation is a real political somersault,” the socialist said in a statement at PS headquarters in Lisbon.

On Monday in Carteira, in the Algarve, the SDP leader proposed lowering personal income tax rates at all but the last level this year, a measure that would be funded by excess tax revenue.

Reacting to Luis Montenegro’s proposal to cut IRS rates in 2023, Porfirio Silva stressed that the “scale of the financial flip” that the Social Democrat presents on behalf of the SDP is worrying.

“In a way, the size of the fiscal somersault that Dr. Montenegro presents on behalf of this PSD is even more surprising, it’s worrying, because it seems that she has led the PSD line into something of permanent volatility, a zigzag, political dependence on the weather vane. according to circumstances,” he said.

Porfirio Silva lamented that “everything is wrong” for the PSD, not taking into account the fact that “employment is at an all-time high, that unemployment is at a 20-year low, that the country’s minimum wage has increased by 50% in period of António Costa’s government and that the average wage increased by more than 25% over the same period.

“Basically, Dr. Montenegro did not seem to understand that the Portuguese economy was undergoing a structural transformation based more on skills, more on exportable production, on both the appreciation of labor and enterprise,” he added.

Therefore, the socialist leader considered that “it is frankly difficult to understand how the opposition, which sees everything wrong, does not see anything positive in what the Portuguese have done in recent years, can contribute to the future of the country.”

Porfirio Silva also recalled that in the last election proposal presented to the country, PSD advocated lowering the IRC in 2023 and 2024, and then, in 2025 and 2026, start thinking about lowering the IRS.

But, he added, “it’s the other way around now.”

“In fact, what PSD proposed when it presented the last time to the Portuguese with the proposal was that in 2025 the IRS would be reduced by about 400 million euros, and in 2026 another decrease by about 400 million euros. “Already today, thanks to what the PS government has done regarding taxation, the Portuguese are already paying two billion euros less than they would have paid if the 2015 rules were in force,” he said.

The Socialist leader also recalled that the coordinator of the SDP’s electoral program in the last elections, who made the previous proposals of the Social Democrats, is the current parliamentary leader of the party, so “apparently there is a huge ability to change with the wind.” . . .