Tax Authority wins. Construction sites will have to pay AIMI

  • ECO News
  • 19 June 2019

In a recent court decision, the Constitutional Court has deliberated that construction sites, held by real estate holdings, will also pay AIMI, regardless of their purpose.

In a recent court decision, the Constitutional Court has deliberated that construction sites, held by real estate holdings, will also pay AIMI (an additional tax to the property tax, known as IMI), regardless of their purpose. Despite this decision being exclusively related to specific companies, it will become law as Jornal de Negócios revealed.

While the banks and real estate holdings believe they should not pay AIMI, the Portuguese Tax Authority strongly disagrees, which has been supported by this recent decision of the Constitutional Court.

The law covering this issue states that all urban buildings for commercial, industrial and services purposes are not required to pay AIMI. However, the companies holding habitational buildings and construction sites for habitational purposes thought this law was unfair. For these companies, this constitutes a “discriminatory treatment” to the construction sites.

The Judges of the Constitutional Court (TC) did not find the proposal “unconstitutional”, supporting the Portuguese Tax Authority’s position. “TC says the law is clear because it already distinguishes construction sites from other types of property. It does not violate the principle of equality because the juridic nature is different between the construction sites and buildings already finished.”, Filipe Abreu, a specialised lawyer in fiscal law from PLMJ, explained.