The report compiled by the Commission for the Review of the Tax Process and Procedure and Taxpayer Guarantees was presented today at a conference organized by the Ministry of Finance, following the document’s delivery to the Government in May by the expert group.
The General Tax Law (LGT) already outlines a set of obligations the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) must fulfill with taxpayers under the “principle of collaboration.” The expert team, coordinated by lawyer Rogério Fernandes Ferreira, proposes adding an item regarding direct communication with taxpayers.
The proposal mandates that the AT must notify the taxpayer, whenever the administration has the relevant contact details, such as phone or email, that a notification or citation has been made available in the respective portal’s reserved area.
Explaining this measure’s objective, the report notes that currently, “either by choice or by imposition, notifications/citations can be made in the reserved area of the Finance Portal” and that “to alert the taxpayers concerned that they have a notification/citation to consult, the administration should inform that the portal should be consulted for this purpose.”
Tax citation is the act through which the AT informs taxpayers of the initiation and existence of a tax enforcement process, providing the person or company with details about the debt (values and origin), how it can be paid (for example, in installments), how to respond (through judicial challenge), and when this can be done.
Besides this proposal, the expert group also suggests the Government explicitly provide in the law that the tax authority should publish accessible explanations about tax rules, ensuring that “the tax administration provides an updated electronic version of the codes and other tax legislation and the rules for calculating taxes.”
“Making the rules for calculating taxes accessible is a specification of the public duty to inform about the interpretation of tax laws,” writes the expert group.
Regarding tax enforcements, the report includes several measures, such as the elimination of provisional citation, clarification of the rules for installment payments, extending the waiver of provision of guarantees by taxpayers in situations prior to the presentation of a graceful or judicial response, extending the deadline for filing complaints against acts of the tax enforcement body, and ending the takeover of execution processes by the insolvency court.
