Almost 40-thousand have joined the program that forgives interest – Diário de Notícias – Lisbon

the State raised over 35 million euros by the end of November

The State raised over 35 million euros until the end of November with the Special Program of Debt Reduction to the State (PERES), which includes the forgiveness of interest, to which they have adhered for almost 40 thousand contributors.

In an interview with the Lusa agency, the secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Fernando Rocha Andrade, made a balance of the adhesion to the so-called ‘tax relief’, which began in early November, adding that, at the moment, “are almost four tens of thousands of taxpayers and 170 thousand tax execution proceedings”.

“We are talking about approximately 300 million euros”, corresponding to the amount of the debt covered by these accessions, being that, according to information sent to Lusa news agency by the Ministry of Finance, have already entered in the coffers of the State’s 35.5 million euros with PERES.

With the data that the Secretary of State has at the moment, Rocha Andrade admitted that, “to comply in payment of the accessions, the revenue for this year would be a little more than 100 million euros, since the program is not finished yet”, and you can join until 20 December.

The secretary of State reiterated further that goal with the program was “not to render the revenue of this year”, a criticism that has been made by the opposition, preferring to highlight the number of tax execution proceedings are being resolved.

on the other hand, with 170 thousand processes and a joint debt of 300 million euros, the secretary of State considered that the average value for tax debt is “relatively low, less than two thousand euros.’

For the ruler, this means that “PERES was, to many contributors of small size, whether families or companies, the possibility to put their accounts in order (…) and delete attachments”.

THE PERES is a scheme for the payment of debts to Tax authorities and Social Security that provides for the waiver the total of default interest, compensatory interest and the costs of the process of tax foreclosure, if the debt is paid in full, or partial, if the payment of the debt to occur in instalments (up to 150).

This scheme applies to taxpayers that have tax debts and contributions that have not been paid within the normal time limits, that is, until the end of may 2016, in the case of the debts to the Tax authorities, and by the end of December 2015, in the case of the debts to Social Security.

however, PERES does not apply to debt-only interest, compensatory interest and/or costs, nor to the extraordinary contributions of the sector (energy, banking and pharmaceutical).

taxpayers can join the program by December 20 this year, and all payments provided for in the membership (at least 8% of the total capital (in debt) to be made up to the 30th day of December this year.

three years Ago, the then-called regime of an exceptional and temporary regularization of tax debts and Social Security allowed for a fitting 1.277 million euros in tax revenue.

Now, and based on this program the previous executive PSD/CDS-PP, the Government expects a revenue of eur 100 million in each of the years of validity of PERES (who will be 11 years).