PS wants “significant say” in future spending
PS Socialists are already playing hard ball over the tax cuts outlined by the government.
Talking today at a Socialist event in Castelo Branco, parliamentary leader Alexandra Leitão warned that if there is no room for negotiations, measures like IRS Jovem (significant tax reductions for the under-35s) and reduction in companies’ tax (IRC) may never get off the ground, as Socialists will find it “more difficult” to support the government’s State Budget for 2025.
Ms Leitão’s antipathy towards the AD government has never been a secret. She recently even suggested the time was coming for Portugal to have a woman prime minister (and she believes she fits the profile…) In other words, Ms Leitão is not planning to be a ‘pushover’.
Her message today is that the “government has to negotiate with the Socialist Party to approve the budget. Naturally, the Socialist Party, as the largest opposition party, will not give up having a significant say in policies enshrined in the budget if it is to make it viable”.
Ms Leitão made it clear that “if the margin for negotiation is closed by measures” with which Socialists disagree (yes, the opposition does not want to see tax cuts either to young people or businesses), “it will become more difficult” to support the State Budget.
Asked if IRS Jovem and reductions in IRC are red lines for the PS, Alexandra Leitão simply said they were “not a good sign” that the government is ready to negotiate.
IRC “will have to come to parliament, because obviously it is the assembly’s reserve, and we will be able to work on it there”, she said.
The PS has been, and will always be, against a reduction in corporate income tax, she added, because it “does not have a very significant effect on business activity” and “around €1.5 billion euros of tax revenue will be lost in a measure that doesn’t have that much impact”.
“40% of companies don’t pay corporation tax. Just like with IRS Jovem, we have a measure that will lose a lot of tax revenue without it having any real effect on a large number of companies,” she went on, reiterating the beef that these measures were announced, without any negotiation with the PS, and for this reason, “do not bode well for the State Budget”.
Source: LUSA
