Reduction of VAT on electricity related to consumption ‘logical’-EDP

  • Lusa
  • 11 December 2019

the Government has the intention to allow the variation of the VAT rate on energy according to the different levels of consumption.

António Mexia, chairman of Portugal’s electricity utility EDP, considered the Government’s intention to allow the variation of the VAT rate on energy according to the different levels of consumption as “logical” and “socially fairer”.

“I think that it’s socially fairer”, said António Mexia to the Lusa agency on the sidelines of a round table in which he participated in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP25), taking place in Madrid.

For the president of EDP, this is a possible tax policy decision that falls to parliament and the government, without “any influence on EDP’s business”, although a variation of this type of VAT rate would “benefit those who need it most”, in other words, “those who have less income, those who consume less”.

The Prime Minister, António Costa, announced yesterday in Lisbon, in the fortnightly debate in Parliament, that he had sent a letter to the European Commission to the VAT Committee”.

The aim was “to ask for the criteria on the principle of VAT stability to be changed so that it would be possible to vary the VAT rate according to the different levels of consumption” in energy, said António Costa.