Portugal: The government is promoting taxation of the “super profits” of food companies

Portugal’s government is promoting a bill, approved Thursday by the cabinet, to tax the “excess profits” not only of energy groups, but also of food trading and distribution companies, as part of efforts to soften the impact of a rise in inflation.

Following the agreement reached at European level to return some of the “surplus profits” of energy groups to households and businesses hit by inflated bills, Lisbon had expressed its intention to impose a tax of at least 33% on the “surplus profits” of energy giants.

Since then, Prime Minister Antonio Costa has raised the possibility of extending the measure to food trading and handling companies. “The windfall tax bill that we will introduce concerns groups not only in the energy sector, but also in the food trading and distribution sector, who have to pay for the profits they made unjustifiably during this inflationary crisis” , he had stated at the end of October during a debate in the plenary session of the Portuguese parliament on the 2023 budget.

The bill, which will be submitted to parliament, where the Socialists have an absolute majority, “is intended to mitigate the direct economic impact of high product prices on the budgets of public organizations, consumers and businesses.”

The consumer price index in Portugal continued its upward trend in October, reaching 10.1% year-on-year, the highest level since May 1992, according to data released last week by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

RES-EMP

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