Money owed to Portuguese taxman 2% of GDP

Monies in unpaid taxes owed to the Portuguese tax authorities now represent 2% of the country’s GDP. Total debts amount to a massive €3.5Bn.

A total of 30,497 names are on the blacklist of debtors, the accumulated total being sufficient to meet Portugal State budget for 2018 and 2019 if paid.

The outstanding amount would also be enough to meet the deficit cuts of €1.3Bn agreed with the European Commission.

The largest slice of debts owed to the Finanças come from the real estate sector including outstanding debts owed on property taxes (Council Property Tax – IMI) and taxes on IRS.

The lion’s share of tax defaulters are individuals or companies in individual names (71% on the list). According to data from the tax authorities regarding April , 21,679 tax payers are IRS payers owing debts of €2.2Bn and 8,818 companies owing €1.3Bn.

In like-for-like terms, the number of people and companies with tax debts fell by 4,842 names. The reduction was most evident for IRS payers rather than companies, 3,595 and 1,257 down respectively.

This means that total debts owed to the tax authorities fell €399 million on 2017.