Company tax increase in 2018? Minister answers with tax stability for companies
Although the Left Block and the Communist Party want to increase company taxes, the Economy minister assures the Government is working on "tax stability" for Portuguese business people.
The Economy minister Manuel Caldeira Cabral assures the 2018 State Budget is keeping “tax stability” for companies in mind. At the side of the presentation of a report on Portugal’s competitiveness, when ECO asked if the Government was going to increase taxes for companies, the minister did not give a direct answer, but made clear that he is not working in that direction.
“What we had in the past two State Budgets was a tax relief and we have been witnessing a tax stability in the majority of taxes”, stated Caldeira Cabral. When asked by ECO if he was able to assure companies he will not increase taxes in 2018, the Economy minister said the Government is only working towards maintaining the stability of current taxes.
“It is in this direction [tax stability] that we are working on and it is a big contrast between what previously happened, in which there were strong tax increases, very burdensome both for companies and employees”, Caldeira Cabral argued.
However, this possibility was recently brought up by the Government’s parliamentary partners: the Left Block and the Portuguese Communist Party want to increase IRC (company tax) to make up for the relief in IRS (personal income tax). The idea would be to have companies with an over 35 million euros’ taxable income — the highest bracket of IRS — pay 9% tax instead of the current 7%.
