The PSD president said on Tuesday that Portugal is experiencing “budget suffocation” and asked the prime minister if he is willing “to cut taxes now” or if he will wait for the PowerPoint on the state budget.
While visiting Bragança district, under the Sentir Portugal route, Luis Montenegro, speaking in Mirandela municipality, defended that there are now conditions for tax relief and accused António Costa of being “the tax record holder in Portugal”.
“Portugal today has fiscal suffocation for people, for families, for businesses, which has consequences (…). We have taxes in Portugal that now need to be reduced. The government today has a surplus of tax revenues, since that was already a lot, it was a record, as foreseen in the budget,” said Luis Montenegro.
As defended by the Social Democratic leader, “There are conditions to cut taxes for the middle class, there are conditions for the under 35s to pay a third of the IRS they pay today, there are conditions for those who are more productive to be able to get the returns of this achievement, of this merit, of not paying taxes or contributions on productivity bonuses”.
Luis Montenegro therefore launched a challenge to the Prime Minister, António Costa, to whom he also left accusations: “Let’s be right here. There are conditions to lower the IRS this year, 2023. It is not waiting for the State Budget (OE) to make flowers with the ‘PowerPoint’ of the OE, there is already a surplus this year. Doctor António Costa has to answer the question of whether or not the IRS should be lowered this year”, he said.
“Dr. António Costa and the PS want to do this now or will they wait for the OE’s ‘PowerPoint’ to show a flower to try and sell the country things that will not be executed later,” he wondered.
Montenegro said that the “government has been available to cut taxes for eight years because it has been ruling the country for eight years”, but he stressed “only availability is one thing, conversation is one thing, PowerPoints are one thing that unfolds”.
“Another thing is that Portugal is breaking records every year. The tax record holder in Portugal has a face, it’s António Costa. The tax record holder in Portugal has a party acronym, it is the PS. minimum wage or just above minimum wage, bringing the country down,” he charged.
Source: DN
