The special Regime of ‘tax relief’ earned €500 million to the State in 2016 – Express

The special regime for the regularization of tax debt yielded more than 500 million euros to State coffers this year and, as a whole, will add up to the total 1,144 million euros until the end of its term.

The balance of the Ministry of Finance, who stated this Tuesday in a statement that during the period of the accession to the Special Plan of Debt Reduction to the State (PERES), which took place between 4 November and 23 December, “93 thousand contributors have joined the scheme, which includes a forgiveness of interest, total or partial, depending on the modality chosen by each taxpayer.

“The total tax debt that was subjected to this regime is of 1,144 million euros”, and that “the revenue achieved in 2016 stood at 511 million,” according to the note of the ministry of Mário Centeno who gives the only account of the data relating to the tax liability, excluding those relating to debts to Social Security.

In question are so “around 573 thousand cases tax debts, with the average debt per process to fix itself in 1.997 euros and the average debt per taxpayer in 12.323 euros”.

The guardianship also refers that “about 60 percent of the contributors have adhered to the mode of payment in instalments, which can go up to 150 in the period of validity of the plan, who is 11 years old.”

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 fees nor to the extraordinary contributions of the sector (energy, banking and pharmaceutical).

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.

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