Portuguese families "will pay less 324 million euros in direct taxes", in 2016, if the proposed State Budget is approved by Parliament, said Saturday the Minister of Finance Mário Centeno, in a presentation session of the OE, one of the many promoted yesterday by the PS at the national level.
The decrease in direct taxes, namely IRS and IRC, and the "return of disposable income" to families were two of the measures most highlighted by Mário Centeno, who also took the opportunity to ensure that the Eurogroup did not ask for any additional measures to those already provided for in the OE , but the presentation of a contingency plan, which the Government believes it does not have to activate.
The minister even defended that the measures already contained in the document will be sufficient "to take Portugal out of the excessive deficit process in 2016".
For that to happen, "it is necessary to ensure the rigor of the public accounts, the budget consolidation and the reduction of the debt burden", he said.
The expression “rigor” was one of the most used by the minister, when he returned to the region where he was born and lived until his adolescence, and where he had a room full of people waiting for him. In fact, the Club Farense salon, in the center of the Algarve capital, was too small for everyone who wanted to participate, with many unable to enter and having to stay in the room next door.
According to the Finance Minister, there is a fundamental principle behind the State Budget, the "gradualism" of the proposals, since, he stressed, "the Government's program is for a legislature" and everything cannot be done in the first year.
For now, the measures taken favored “increasing the disposable income of families, economic growth and job creation”, he defended. This is achieved, according to the governor, with the reduction of taxes collected directly from citizens and companies, namely through the IRS and IRC, but also "with the reduction of the VAT on restaurants to 13 percent, in the food component". To compensate, there are increases "in alcohol, tobacco and petroleum products".
The replacement of the salary level in the Civil Service and the replacement of some pensions, as well as the increase in the minimum wage, also go in the same direction. For the companies, Mário Centeno said that "a mission unit was created, which will present results very soon", to study strategies "for capitalization and diversification of financing for companies".
For this "crucial" purpose, "1,5 billion euros" of community funds will be channeled, destined to "leverage capitalization projects and increase the competitiveness of companies".
"In the coming days, a national debate will be launched on the regulation of the financial system", he also announced, where the "design of the institutional architecture" of regulation will be discussed, namely the role of Banco de Portugal, the CMVM and the entity that regulates the insurance in the control that is done by the State.
Mário Centeno answered many questions, from an audience that was, for the most part, made up of PS militants and sympathizers, some of which touched on some of the criticisms pointed out to this budget.
One of the issues raised was the promise to replace the 35 hours a week, in the civil service, which will not be fulfilled for now, at least in full. In this field, the government official once again assumed the commitment to apply this measure, but warned that "it will have to be applied without increasing the State's expenditure on personnel", since the Government does not relinquish the objective of "maintaining healthy public finances".
On the question of whether Portuguese families, between a reduction in direct taxes and an increase in indirect ones, will pay more or less taxes and whether the Government has admitted, in an erratum to the Budget, that the tax burden would increase for households, was To answer.
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