“The Government aims to create a synthetic notion of income for IRS purposes, with the explicit goal, written in the Government’s program, of making people who currently do not pay IRS start to pay, thus being able to lower the rates for others. It’s a way to give with one hand and take with the other,” accused PS deputy Miguel Costa Matos in a statement to journalists in parliament.
From the PS perspective, “if this is incomprehensible” for artistic, scientific, or sports scholarships that currently do not pay IRS, it is even more concerning for those receiving social benefits “and whom the Government now wants, with the other hand, to tax through IRS.”
Accusing the Government of not answering the PS’s questions, Miguel Costa Matos stated that it is time for a “thorough clarification,” and for that reason, the socialists have urgently requested the hearing of the Minister of State and Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, and the Minister of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho.
“It’s time for us to know how to be a decent society and to tell people receiving social benefits whether or not they will be taxed in this radical shift of a Government that unfortunately is not siding with those in need,” he accused.
According to the PS deputy and leader, in a decent society, people are supported “when they are down, when they need it, and by fighting poverty.”
“That is why we have social benefits and that is why social benefits do not pay IRS,” he explained.
Miguel Costa Matos further added that in recent days there have been “worrying reports” of people being excluded from access to social benefits “allegedly due to a new equivalence between income and social benefits.”
