Stamp duty on cards will be paid by the clients – Jornal de Negócios – Portugal

the retail sector, which includes large chains of supermarkets, asks the Government to “fiscal transparency” about who is responsible for the payment of the Stamp Tax on transactions with the card.

“Pugnamos for more fiscal transparency, and that when designing tax measures for certain sectors it is clear who is the passive subject of the tax and who is going to pay,” says Ana Isabel Trigo Morais, director general of the Portuguese Association of Distribution Companies (APED).

In question is the fact, reported this Tuesday by the Public, that the Redunicre started to charge traders, last December, the Stamp duty of 4% on the commissions paid to the banks in payments with cards.
Thus, according to the example cited in the newspaper, the constant of the charter that the Redunicre sent to customers, a payment of 25 euros is charged a service fee of 1%, which gives 25 cents. It is on this value that relates to the Stamp duty (4%), in this case a penny. Which brings to 26 cents, in full, the amount payable by the merchant.

THE APED says that its members – such as Sonae, owner of the Continent, and Jerónimo Martins, owner of Pingo Doce, which dominate the food retail sector in Portugal – are supporting this additional charge which came into force in March 2016. The collection kicked off in December because the Redunicre – the largest network of acceptance of payment cards in Portugal – was to develop its system to implement this measure.

“we Dispute that there is more of a tax disguised in the tax sector and is, in fact, a tax on consumption. Our associated companies are, once again, to support this new tax is hidden,” says Wheat Moral.

Already in February, 2016, by the time of the presentation of the Budget of the State, the Business anticipated that, although the rate levied on the newsstand – that delivers the revenue to the State – there was the risk of the rate to be bounce on the merchants or even on the customers. This is what happened. “The dealer echoed to the payment processor, which reverberated to the client. Who will pay at the end of the day it is the consumer,” adds the responsible. The APED is not yet concrete data on the weight of this contribution to the sector and ensures that already had the opportunity to “raise awareness” of the Government to the model.

For now, the retailers do not admit to set a minimum limit on card payments to cover the costs of this new tax.

AHRESP is considering recourse to the courts

“it’s Always been our interpretation that [the tax] would be about the revenue of the entities in the banking and financial. It is part of who gets the revenue by having the service, not who uses it”, positions, Pedro Carvalho, director of the area of Research, Planning, and Studies of AHRESP.

The association that represents the catering and hospitality national admits to “go to the last instances” to “reverse this situation” which it considers to be the harm the businesses already weighed down by the costs of the context. The body is to assess the legality of the situation, admitting that the law can have “multiple interpretations”.

“Not in the passes by the head, quite to the contrary, that they are our companies to support a tax which has been duly accounted for in the Budget of the State”, says Pedro Carvalho.

The responsible considers that the dealer is the “discard” responsibilities, since this is who has the economic interest in the operation. “We have a cost. Who has the economic interest is the Redunicre”, positions to the Business.

The Unicre, which holds the Redunicre, did not take long to react to the news of the Public and to traders. The company with about 80 thousand payment terminals in the country held this Tuesday, January 10th, merely to comply with the law. According to the change of law in March 2016, “the economic impact of tax arising from transactions based on the card is the responsibility of the customers of financial institutions,” he said.

In 2015, the purchases through the Redunicre exceeded 16.600 million. Taking this basis, and on a simple calculation and direct, would have been paid in service fees 166 million euros in this year. After, and applying over this value the Stamp duty of 4%, the companies have a contract with Redunicre would have paid a total of 6,64 million euros of contribution.