The prime minister announced on Wednesday that the bill the government will introduce to tax snap profits will also include the distribution sector, after the PCP accused the board of favoring economic groups.
In the debate on the general state budget for 2023, the PCP’s secretary general, Jerónimo de Sousa, ruled that the government made “a clear option for the interests of economic groups” in its budget proposal.
“In the face of rising inflation and speculative price increases by economic groups, be it food, fuel, electricity or gas, the government continues to refuse to control prices and margins, allowing these economic groups to continue to accumulate large profits on the detriment of the impoverishment of the people,” he accused.
Jerónimo de Sousa stated that “prices are rising and rising a lot, affecting workers, retirees and the population”, while at the same time they are “rising and rising well, much of the profits of economic and multinational groups”.
“After all, someone benefits. Someone is cheating someone. Don’t come up with the rhetoric that there is no money for salaries: yes, it is poorly distributed,” he said.
The PCP’s secretary general addressed António Costa, asking whether the government “will continue to compromise the future and make workers and people pay for speculation” and the “profit drive of economic groups”. or will he have. “the courage and political audacity to confront them and make an appreciation for the living conditions of the people”.
In his response, the prime minister stressed that “once this budget debate is over”, he hopes that the Assembly of the Republic will be “available to discuss the proposed law” of the government to tax the unexpected profits of companies.
“It applies to the 2022 profit, not the 2023 profit, the bill we are going to introduce for the taxation of unexpected profits of the group of companies, which are not only in the energy sector, but also in the distribution sector, which who have to pay profits they make unjustly as a result of this inflation crisis”he emphasized.
Costa also said he hoped the government’s bill could “count on the votes of the PCP”.
Previously, the PCP’s secretary general also believed that the government’s budget proposal “accelerates the impoverishment of workers, retirees and retirees by refusing to regain lost purchasing power”.
“As the urgency of raising salaries and valuing pensions becomes increasingly urgent, the government will decide to reduce the pensions pensioners and retirees were entitled to by law,” he said.
Jerónimo de Sousa asked Costa whether “it is not a pension discount that is implemented when a pensioner, with a pension of 400 euros, should by law have an increase of 34 euros and will receive only 17 euros”.
in response, António Costa reiterated that “in January 2023 no pensioner will receive less than in December 2022”, stressing that the government has decided to bring forward half of the pension increase planned for 2023 to October this year “to ensure that people have money when they need it most”.
Anticipating criticism from the PCP, Costa admitted that Jerónimo de Sousa can counter that: “with this increase in 2023, if nothing happens during the year, the increase in 2024 will be lower in real terms than it would be.” “.
“That’s why we said that we will continue to monitor very closely the evolution of the economic situation, the purchasing power of retirees, our economy and the capacity of social security, so that we can react in 2024 to what is needed to respond in 2024” , he said.
The Prime Minister has thus committed to “continue to make progress, not reduce what people receive, but increase what people receive” and hope “to be able to exceed what people expect, if the economy allows it, and to the future sustainability of Social Security”.
Costa also believed that the path taken since 2015 – when he took over the board – was “effectively improving the incomes of those who work, those who are retired, those who receive social benefits”.
“When we talk about poverty today, we are not talking about the same poverty that we talked about in 2015. (…) The poverty line of these years has risen by 31% from 2015 to now and has risen as the median Portuguese society’s income has thankfully improved,” said.
Source: DN
