LISBON: Each Portuguese household chipped in with €1,415 more IRS in 2014 than in 2012, according to a study presented Monday by the Secretary General of the CGTP trade union confederation, Arménio Carlos.
Carlos said the report focused on the inequalities and impoverishment of Portuguese and had concluded that over the aforementioned period income tax had risen 42%, “with households paying in an extra €3.4 billion.”
The report also found that there had been a 20% increase in poverty in the two years between 2011 and 2013 with “over 455,000 citizens falling below the poverty line of whom 80,000 were children and young persons aged under 18.”
In 2013, “one in four” Portuguese persons were classed as poor and including “over 576,000 children and young persons” that Carlos had said had been particularly hit by unemployment, low salaries and a reduction in the level of social transfers.
In the three years through to 2014, the report stated that material deprivation had risen from 20.9% to 25.7% and a “significantly larger proportion of the Portuguese cannot meet their basic economic needs or acquire durable goods.” Carlos said that the CGTP report put the total amount of lost wages due to the cut in overtime pay and the abolition of national holidays on its own amounted to in excess of €3.8 billion.
