Chega’s president, André Ventura, challenged the government this Saturday (7) to “return to taxpayers”, in the coming weeks, the increased VAT revenue resulting from the rise in fuel prices due to the war in the Middle East.
In a press conference, at Chega’s headquarters, in Lisbon, André Ventura announced that his party will request the scheduling of an urgent debate on this issue in the Assembly of the Republic, which he hopes will be held next week.
The president of Chega considered the extraordinary discount of 3.55 cents per liter on the ISP on road diesel announced on Friday by the Ministry of Finance to be insufficient and accused the prime minister, Luís Montenegro, of having made misleading statements about an ISP discount in the last fortnightly debate.
André Ventura asked that “the government not profit from this” and proposed that, in the face of a continued rise in prices, the additional VAT revenue be returned, “distinguishing between individuals and legal entities, in one case through direct payment, in another through a corporate voucher or a company voucher, so that companies can receive this amount that was paid in excess”.
On Wednesday, during the fortnightly debate in parliament, the prime minister admitted the possibility of, if the price of fuel rose by more than 10 cents per liter, “introducing an extraordinary and temporary ISP discount to compensate for the additional VAT revenue”.
“In this way, all this additional money is returned to Portuguese people and companies”, added the prime minister.
The president of Chega said that, in the meantime, faced with “an increase of 23 cents” in the price of road diesel, “what the Government will do is, above these 10 cents, give 3.5 cents”.
“In other words, it will still be the biggest increase ever on taxpayers’ pockets. On gasoline, there isn’t even any discount,” he added.
André Ventura therefore accused the prime minister of having made an intervention that “was a fraud” and “was lying to taxpayers”.
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