The previous government “recognized the need” to change the IRS model for green receipts, but ended up not doing so. Liberal professionals say this is an issue they want to discuss with the new government.
The previous government had signaled its intention to change the IRS withholding tax to which green receipts are subject, but the promise didn’t come to fruition. Now that the new Executive has taken office, the National Association of Liberal Professionals (ANPL), through Orlando da Silva, tells ECO that it wants to revisit the issue, arguing that self-employed workers should be free to choose their tax withholding rates.
“The PS and the previous government recognized the need to introduce a new IRS withholding tax model, which could replace the current flat rate of 25% with a set of progressive rates. In the State Budget for 2024, this issue was not resolved. In practice, nothing happened. We want to address this issue with the current government right away,” he told ECO.
It should be explained that today self-employed workers are generally obliged to withhold 25% of their income at source.
In 2022, the government said it was working on reformulating the IRS withholding tax model, but did not put forward any specific measures.
As early as 2023, the issue was taken up again and the income agreement reached at the Social Dialogue included a commitment to bring the taxation applied to self-employment closer to that applied to income from dependent work. However, the State Budget presented a few days later did not include anything along these lines, with the then Finance Minister, Fernando Medina, referring the matter to an independent piece of legislation.
Also in this context, the PS ended up approving an amendment stating that during the course of this year the government would make “thenecessary computer changes to apply progressive withholding tax rates to self-employed workers”.
But for Orlando da Silva, this is not enough. “It’s important that the tax authorities allow professionals theautonomy to choose the tax rate to be applied to theirincome each month, so that they can adapt it to their reality and expectations, while protecting the privacy of their level of income,” argues the president of ANPL.
On the other hand, the government’s program presented this week contains the intention to converge the social protection rights of self-employed and economically dependent workers with those of employees, which the labor professionals welcome.
“It seems to us on the level of intentions that it goes in the direction of what we have always defended . Self-employed workers effectively have a hugedeficit of protection in terms of paternity, unemployment, the risk of accidents at work and illness,” he said.
He adds: “We don’t want to be treated better. Just fairly, because self-employment is ignored and penalized in Portugal.” Orlando da Silva now says that he will ask the government for more clarification on this approach to social protection.
