The Minister of the Presidency affirmed this Thursday that the Government respects IL’s vote against the State Budget for 2025, but maintained that it is the first budget proposal in Portugal “that does not increase any taxes” and reduces several.
At the end of the Council of Ministers conference, António Leitão Amaro was asked about the announcement made this Thursday afternoon by the president of the IL, Rui Rocha, that his party will vote against the draft Budget for 2025, in general terms , alleging lack of reformist vision and non-alignment with AD’s electoral program.
“We respect, We note that this is the first budget in Portugal that does not increase any taxes.“There are no inflation rate updates and there are significant tax cuts,” he responded.
The minister stated that in this EO there is no increase “in either indirect taxes or special taxes and several taxes are significantly reduced, in particular the IRS, including the young IRS, but the IRS for everyone.”
“We update IRS levels well above inflation. The CIT goes down, the corporate tax goes down in other components,” he added.
For the Minister of the Presidency, “this is a budget that maintains the balance of public accounts, reduces taxes, does not increase any, manages to recover public administration (…) while maintaining public spending.”
“If we discount the loans from the PRR (Recovery and Resilience Plan), Spending increases less than economic growth.“, he highlighted.
The minister defended that it is “a good budget for Portugal” and, in reference to the announced abstention of the PS, she expressed confidence that it would be viable.
“Naturally, we are focused on the execution of the current budget and the 2025 budget and on governance,” he said.
The IL leader justified the vote against by stating that his party “realized that it is facing a PSD that for the moment is completely aligned with the vision of the PS.”
IL votes against this budget.
We would vote in favor of a reformist EO that would put the country on the path to growth and prosperity.
We would vote to abstain with an EO that complied, at least, with AD’s electoral program.
We voted against a socialist EO that prolongs the stagnation.
— Rui Rocha (@ruirochaliberal) October 24, 2024
Before journalists, in parliament, Rui Rocha admitted that IL would vote differently on the Budget proposal of the PSD/CDS Government “if it incorporated a reformist vision of the country, a liberal vision, and if it incorporated a vision aligned with the program electoral that the AD presented to the country.”
“But this is a budget proposal that could have been presented by the PS. “IL votes against because, obviously, it doesn’t matter who signs the document, what matters is the meaning that the document presents,” he explained.
Source: Observadora
