Menus that include alcohol/ soft drinks “won’t now be subject to 23% IVA”
With every political party wanting to show how much better life could be if they were voted into power in March (or at least voted for at all), PS Socialists have decided the measure that would have hiked up prices in restaurants perhaps wasn’t the best ‘new rule’ to introduce before citizens go to the polls.
Thus the decision that any restaurant ‘menu’ that included alcohol or soft drinks would automatically be charged 23% IVA, irrespective of the lower IVA rating for the food involved, has been ‘scrapped’.
Contacted by reporters, the Ministry of Finance stressed it has “only clarified an existing measure”, but that in the first note on this subject “it was misinterpreted by the catering sector”.
Says SIC, although the u-turn is welcomed, “the catering sector will only be fully satisfied when the Ministry of Finance includes all drinks in the intermediate rate” of IVA (13%), no longer discriminating against alcohol and soft drinks.
News watchers may have noticed there have been several unpopular measures put forwards by the government recently, only to then be ‘withdrawn’, to the perceived ‘delight’ of citizens. The u-turns began with the plan to tax drivers with very old cars increasingly more every year (and much more than the drivers of newer vehicles). This elicited the largest petition ever raised by Portuguese citizens, and since then many unpopular measures have been ‘trailed’ and then quickly rethought/ bundled into a drawer when public opinion reacted too strongly. ND
Source material: SIC Notícias
