Measures to combat the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine. This afternoon, while the House of Representatives is discussing the plan the PSD has for families, the government should announce its measures for companies.
The plan that the PSD will have in parliament for discussion already serves as a prelude to the discussion of the next national budget (OE2023), the government proposal of which will be submitted to the House of Representatives on 10 October.
The motion for a resolution tabled by the Social Democrats proposes a change in the intermediate levels of the IRS – a measure that the government has not adopted in its “Families First” program. This government program contains measures related to pension amounts, measures have been converted into a bill that will be discussed tomorrow, Friday.
In the PSD proposal, in addition to the IRS issue, a food voucher will be added to all those who are active and have an income of less than 1,100 euros, which the PSD estimates covers a universe of 4.6 million people.
The third axis is the proposal to lower the IRS to the fourth, fifth and sixth levels because, Luís Montenegro argued at the Pontal Festival, “those who earn between 1,100 and 2,500 euros per month also experience difficulties, not as severe as the families in need but who deserve support”.
The program also foresees the allocation of an additional €10 to all children and young people receiving child benefits, a measure estimated at €10 million per month, in addition to support lines for private social solidarity institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Presenting this package, Luís Montenegro guaranteed that the measures were “transient” for the four months remaining until the end of the year and that they would be secured by the surplus of taxes to be collected by the state in 2022.
The President of the Republic, who found the anti-inflation program “balanced”, although not very ambitious, also emphasized that “the PSD has helped enormously” in the preliminary presentation of its proposals for a social emergency program and considered that there is “implicit consensus” for the adoption of the measures
“I think the PSD has helped a lot, you can’t imagine how it helped, he spoke before, admitted money has been injected directly into families and spending has gone up, it’s a major turnaround for the PSD. This turnaround is good for the PS, which would be if PSD said “they spend money”, he said. For Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa “the PSD had a sense of state and contributed”, as this is “an implicit consensus” between the two largest parties.
It is not yet known whether the government is willing to go to the IRS. What is known is that tax changes imply a vote in parliament and the government wants this discussion to take place at the time of the SO2023 discussion.
Interviewed on TVI on Monday, the Prime Minister referred the issue to the budget discussion. However, he recalls that this tax has already been reduced this year with the split of the levels and more importantly for families with children and for young people at the beginning of their careers.
In the interview, the prime minister estimated the tax revenues that the government had this year at 2.8 billion euros above what had been foreseen in the state budget, a much lower value than indicated by the opposition. He also stressed that “the unpredictability of war brings enormous uncertainty into our lives”, and that “a responsible government at this point cannot give any guarantees that it will not do this or that”.
In other words, it is necessary “not to take a step bigger than the leg that will make us walk backwards tomorrow”. Because, since tax revenues are higher than expected, it is also true that “the State also pays for inflation”. “We have more than €596 million in expenditure on fuel and food paid by the state. PSP, GNR and INEM vehicles run on the same diesel and petrol,” he explained.
Meanwhile, BE has scheduled a discussion in parliament for October 6 about the problems the rise in interest rates is causing on home loans – and here again the government says it will have legislative initiative (and the PSD too). The blockists will present their proposals on this in the coming days, along with the party leader, Pedro Filipe Soares, to ensure that there is “total openness” to discuss their proposals with others, from the government or the parties.
Source: DN
