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The tax and customs authorities (TA) will determine who are the Portuguese taxpayers who have joined the three tax amnesties approved by the governments of José Sócrates and Pedro Passos Coelho, information that is not known to date.
The tax authorities are allowed to justify due diligence in new tax investigations with citizens who, by adhering to these regimes, were immune from tax offenses for hiding money at the tax office at the tax office. And may settle the values by paying a lower IRS. But you can not go as far as the Left Bloc wanted to go.
The initiative came from the BE and was approved in the specialty with the votes in favor of the PS and the PCP. The proposal received the PSD's abstention and the vote of the CDS against. The measure will oblige the Bank of Portugal to send to the tax authorities all the tax adjustment sheets handed over to the taxpayers' bank supervisor who, in 2005, 2010 or 2012, adhered to the famous exceptional tax regularization scheme (RERT).
Today, thanks to the mega-programs of investigations conducted by the Central Investigation and Penal Action Department (DCIAP), the names of some people who have joined the RERT, including the former president of the BES Ricardo Salgado or the former leader of the party. PT Zeinal Bava. The public prosecutor has obtained the records only with the authorization of a judge. But it is information that the Treasury itself does not know in advance, because at present, only the Banco de Portugal (and commercial banks of the amnestiados) have access to the declarations.
The BE has filed this measure because, at present, if the tax authorities are investigating any of these taxpayers, they may have their hands and feet tied. Why You can not know if the amount you are asking for has already been paid or if it is a new hidden amount. If the taxpayer is confronted with the tax controllers, he can say that he has already regularized the value that the tax authorities think is hidden, but that the tax authorities, unaware of the accrual claims, can not say with certainty if this amount corresponds to the transaction under investigation or if a new value is envisaged. That's what happened to a lot of citizens discovered in the case swiss leaks, which were shielded by RERT.
The initiative is welcomed by the representatives of the heads of the tax system – both by the president of the Union of Tax Workers and by the president of the Association of Customs and Trade Inspection Professionals. taxes – but it is not consensual among prosecutors and some consider it unconstitutional principle of trust. Indeed, the RERT laws relating to the declaration of regularization "can under no circumstances be used as evidence or elements relevant to fiscal, criminal or administrative procedures, and the intervening banks must keep the information provided confidential".
The positioning of each party in relation to each concrete rule of the BE proposal was decisive in order to know what the tax authorities can now do with these declarations.
The BE proposal ensures that returns can not be used as evidence against amnestied taxpayers, but allows the use of information "to justify due diligence" during judicial investigations. And this point of the law got the green light with votes in favor of BE, PS and PCP, with the vote against the PSD and the CDS's abstention.
Another approved point allows the tax authorities, if they investigate a taxpayer and that he claims to be affiliated with the RERT and has already regularized the debt that he claims, ask the person to force him to collaborate within 90 days. The person will have to indicate what were the omitted tax facts (under investigation), what operations allowed to obtain the income, as well as the date and place of the facts. This part was approved with votes in favor of PS, BE and PCP, and opposition from PSD and CDS.
A point from this point of the law required those taxpayers to also indicate who was advising on the operations being investigated – with respect to this initiative, only the BE and the PCP voted for, against the PS, the PSD and the CDS. , who voted against.
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Along the way, it was also intended that the clarifications requested by the tax authorities to which it adhered to an RERT on "the content of the tax adjustment declarations and the tax facts that had provoked them, including clarifications on the underlying transactions. income, their concealment and non-taxation before the RERT ", should be covered by the duty of collaboration.
Among prosecutors who have learned the new figure is one of the state secretaries for fiscal affairs of the government of António Guterres, the lawyer Rogério Fernandes Ferreira, whose law firm has published information on the scope of application of the RERT application.
In a note to PÚBLICO, the lawyer believes that BE's proposal "besides that it violates the right to the protection of taxpayers' data, violates violently the principle of legal confidence and security as pillars of the rule of law ". Indeed, according to the law, the declaration of tax regularization could not "be used as an index or relevant element in the context of a tax, criminal or administrative procedure, and the banks that intervene should keep the information provided confidential. ". The legislator states that it "can not now infringe the limits imposed by the Constitution on the same data transmission, and in particular the principle of trust, given the need for consent and that this consent is given in a purpose and can not be used for any other purpose. "
"Interesting" but "limited"
If the PS ended up voting alongside the BE to give more leeway to the Treasury, Mario Centeno never commented. The Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs of his team, António Mendonça Mendes, said Wednesday that during the debate in plenary. He ruled the proposal "interesting" but limited the mood as to what the Treasury could do with the new information. "It is very limited, from the point of view of the strategies of the past, to see the future," he said.
In response to ME deputy Mariana Mortágua, the minister stressed that the proposal was not "as linear" as Mortágua said or "as linear as the question is often asked in the public square". Mendes Mendes pointed out that the first two RERs (approved by the Socrates governments) required the repatriation of capital and the knowledge of the underlying regime, which was not the case during the last RERT (launched by the government Passos). He added: "[Também] what is often said in the public opinion, as if it was an absolute truth, is not entirely true that there is an obligation of destruction documents [as declarações de regularização]because this obligation does not derive from the law – what follows from this is the obligation of the documents to remain at the Bank of Portugal for ten years.
The leader acknowledges that the proposal raises a question about the principle of trust in the state. "Things are not black and white, they are complex." "We must act with the necessary precautions so that, by ensuring that all the rights enshrined in the law, do not make too much of concrete results of this initiative, "he said.
Mbre Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes Mendes M Mmi MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Result of the application of the RER. "Its predecessor, the current deputy of the PS, Fernando Rocha Andrade , is favorable to the purpose of the measure.
News corrected at 19:38: The PUBLIC wrote in the first version of this news that the Secretary of State for Tax Affairs did not comment on Wednesday the BE initiative, which turned out to be inaccurate because António Mendonca Mendes spoke about the measure during the plenary debate this morning. It was the first time that the Secretary of State spoke of the initiative presented on November 2. Two weeks ago, when Mário Centeno was questioned in Parliament about this measure, neither the Minister of Finance nor the Secretary of State answered questions from MEP Mariana Mortágua.
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