LISBON: The state collected €11.483 billion in taxes over the first four months of this year with the rise attributable to the 7.2% surge in indirect tax receipts, the DGO – the General Directorate of the Budget reported.
In financial terms, that amounts to an additional €449.7 million flowing into state coffers with the DGO stating this “consolidated the trend for rising fiscal revenues that began in early 2013.” This result was primarily boosted in the first third of this year by the take earned from higher returns from Value Added Tax, up 9.2% to total €4.846 billion over this period that the report in turn attributed to “the recovery of economic activities and the rising effectiveness of new measures designed to combat fraud and fiscal invasion.”
However, there were also robust rises in other forms of indirect taxation with vehicle sale duty surging 26.2% to €185.7 million and with road tax up 10.4% to chip in with €95.1 million. Meanwhile, the government’s own forecasts for its taxation revenues already look adrift from reality after the first four months of 2015 with the amount remaining broadly unchanged year-on-year at €4.9 billion.
To begin with, there was a 1.5% fall in personal taxation receipts over the period, totalling €4.3 billion, and contrasting with the annualised 4% rise forecast by the government all the while corporate tax revenues advanced 3.6% to total €541 million and against the annualised decline of 17.7% expected in the 2015 state budget.
