“We do not see ourselves as a prime minister who systematically behaves like a beggar, always waiting for donations from Brussels, until more money falls through his door,” Rui Rocha said in Coimbra in the National Council’s first intervention. of broken.
In a speech explaining the reasons for voting against the 2024 State Budget (OE), the Liberal leader emphasized that “it is no coincidence that António Costa has already defended a permanent Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
“It is because there are no solutions for the country and it wants to condemn Portugal to permanent dependence,” he stressed.
For Rui Rocha, the OE for 2024 “does not solve any essential problem” of the Portuguese and throws the country into a time of “mediocre growth (1.5%), which does not allow the generation of wealth and does not allow companies and Portuguese to “growing in life”.
The IL leader accused the Prime Minister of increasing indirect taxes by 8.9% in 2024, while direct tax revenues “remain almost the same”, despite the announced cut in personal income tax (IRS).
In this chapter, he announced that in the discussion on the OE for 2024, his party will present the proposal to reduce the IRS “the most challenging of all parliamentary groups”.
“There is an increase in tax revenues of 4.8% and there is another record tax burden that António Costa will break again,” the leader stressed, accusing the government of having only three measures for companies out of 39 OE were intended. “are fundamental to wealth”.
According to the IL leader’s calculations, the country has invested more money by the state in Efacec “than provided for in this OE for the companies”.
In his intervention, he also challenged the government to reduce taxes on rental income to “have more houses on the market to solve Portugal’s housing problem”.
Rui Rocha also urged the Prime Minister to reduce VAT on construction, “because if housing is an essential good and there is a housing crisis,” then from a taxation point of view, this issue cannot be treated “as a good that is superfluous or luxurious”.
In addition to the Prime Minister, the PSD also came under heavy criticism from the leader of the Liberals, who accused the Social Democrats of now demanding a reduction in the IRS, while voting against an IL proposal to that effect.
“The PSD now has posters around the country saying ‘lower taxes now’, but in the proposal we presented to reduce the IRS in 2023 in the first five brackets, with the lowest income, the PSD voted against, recalls he himself.
Rui Rocha emphasized that IL is the “most important” factor of the opposition to the socialist government and believed that his party “quickly diagnoses and proposes solutions that make a difference for the Portuguese”.
Source: DN
