Pre-emptively go on offensive: “We don’t need more taxes!”
Bankers in Portugal “refuse to allow banks’ historic profits in 2023 to become an election issue”, writes Lusa today.
Banking bosses stress last year’s exceptional gains “are results that are unlikely to be repeated and that the sector makes its contribution to society with the taxes it pays”.
Of the big five banks operating in Portugal, Santander Totta, Novo Banco, and BPI have already presented their 2023 accounts, and in all cases, these are the best results ever, with profits of €1.03 billion, €743 million and €524 million, respectively.
State Bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos, and BCP will report in the coming weeks – but the results up to September (CGD made €987 million and BCP €651 million) suggest they too will post historic results for 2023, surpassing even the ‘record profits’ of 2007. That year, the (then) five big – CGD, BCP, BES – Banco Espírito Santo, Santander Totta and Banco BPI – made a profit of almost €2.9 billion.
Says Lusa, banks’ feelings are “of great satisfaction, but also of caution and even devaluation of the results (Santander Totta, in its press release warns that next year won’t be as profitable and that they are against further burdens on the sector – meaning, they don’t want any more taxes…)
In an article in Público before the start of the results season, president of the Portuguese Banking Association, Vítor Bento, said the volume of profits has to be compared with the high capital invested in the sector and that “interfering administratively (or fiscally) with transitory profitability, but totally diluted in a broad perspective, will not only be counterproductive but also aggressive in the interests of companies and families who depend on a solid and profitable banking sector to support them”.
The same ideas have been passed on by bank bosses who have presented results at press conferences (those, it is, that have held press conferences).
According to the banks, in 2023, Santander Totta paid €431 million in tax on profits, €38 million in extraordinary contributions to the banking sector and additional solidarity, €56 million for non-deduction of VAT and €23.1 million in contributions to the resolution funds (national and European).
BPI paid €180 million in corporate income tax, €36 million in non-deductible VAT, €31 million in national resolution fund costs, the banking sector contribution and solidarity surcharge and €10 million to the European resolution fund.
The Novo Banco group paid €5.8 million in taxes, €35.3 million in contributions to the banking sector, €15 million to the European resolution fund €7.1 million to the national fund and €30 million in special IMI tax.
CGD’s chairman, Paulo Macedo, said in November that “most people” are proud that the public bank is profitable – estimating the daily dividends that CGD generates for the state at €2 million – but that there are those who are “deeply against profits” and “if it’s from big companies, it’s even worse”.
Lusa
