Portugal has the fourth worst tax system in the OECD
Portugal is in 35th place out of the 38 OECD countries in the Tax Competitiveness Index for 2024, according to the Tax Foundation’s assessment, released in Portugal by the Mais Liberdade Institute.
The index, led by Estonia, is subdivided into five areas: Taxes on property (Portugal appears in 20th position), on consumption (22nd), on individuals’ income (26th), international taxation (31st) and companies (37th), in which Portugal has the worst ranking.
André Pinção Lucas, Executive Director of Instituto Liberdade, told online news source ECO that “the lack of tax competitiveness has been one of the main obstacles to Portuguese economic development, which becomes more evident when compared to other similar economies”.
And the situation is not expected to change in 2025. “The State Budget for 2025 does not present structuring measures that significantly improve our tax competitiveness, so it is not expected that Portugal’s relative position will change much in the coming years, and is therefore a missed opportunity to create a much more competitive tax system with a much more ambitious vision”.
Overall, Portugal maintained the same position as last year in the 2024 edition of the Tax Competitiveness Index, 35th among the 38 OECD countries. According to a statement from Mais Liberdade. In the 2023 report, Portugal appeared in 34th position, but the ranking methodology was updated in this edition and, so, the Portuguese position remains unchanged. In the overall score, the Portuguese tax system fell by 0.2 points, from 53.9 to 53.7 out of 100 points.