The prime minister on Tuesday ratified the decree creating support for the payment of rents and home loan payments, referred to in a note highlighting that these are the first measures of the “More Housing” program.
In the same note, the office of the executive leader points out that the “Program + Housing” has been publicly discussed since February 16 and “contains various fiscal measures that the government will submit to the Assembly of the Republic”.
The text emphasizes that, under the terms of the Constitution, parliament “has the exclusive authority to legislate in this area, with a view to creating tax incentives for affordable renting, reducing the IRS tax on landlords, and reducing the sales tax rate on the construction and renovation of real estate intended for rental, among other tax incentives”.
This Tuesday, at the beginning of the evening, the President of the Republic announced that he had issued the government decree creating support for rents and housing loans, as they are “necessary and urgent measures”, but “regrets that they have not been extended more “.
This position of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and the executive order are contained in a note published on the official website of the Presidency of the Republic on the Internet.
“Since these are necessary and urgent measures to support families, given the deteriorating economic and social situation, while regretting that they are no longer extended, namely through taxes, to cover other equally difficult situations, the President of the Republic of the Government Diploma that provides exceptional support to families to pay their rent or secure mortgage credit agreements”reads the note.
On Thursday, the head of state had promised to urgently decide on the first measures of the government’s housing package in the form of a decree law: “If they are urgent and arrive in Belém, they will of course be decided, namely carried out urgently”.
The decree law issued this Tuesday and approved by the Council of Ministers on Thursday creates an extraordinary support called “Income Support” and an extraordinary support for the accelerated increase in mortgage lending embodied in the “Bonus of Fees”.
According to the communiqué of that meeting of the Council of Ministers, the “Income Support” is intended for tenants with an effort rate of more than 35%, with an income up to the maximum limit of the 6th step of the IRS and contracts signed and registered with the tax authorities until March 15 2023, is paid by social security, with retroactive effect to January 2023, and can be up to 200 euros per month.
The “Interest rate subsidy” takes the form of a temporary interest rate subsidy and is intended for borrowers of credit contracts for the acquisition or construction of a permanent home, and aims to respond to the rapid variation of the reference index, with a impact on one of the main burdens of the family budget.
On Monday, during a visit to CMTV’s facilities, the president of the republic opined that the government’s housing package, in global terms, “as it has been conceived from the outset, is unusable, both at the starting point and at the point of arrival”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa globally equated the package of measures announced by the government – many of which have yet to be approved by the Council of Ministers – to the “so-called poster laws”, which “seem to proclaim certain more pamphleteering programmatic principles, but the idea is not determined that they pass to practice, no, it is that bills and posters remain”.
Source: DN
