Figueira da Foz keeps fiscal package for 2027

A Câmara da Figueira da Foz will maintain in 2027 the rates of the Municipal Property Tax (IMI), the spill and the return to the municipalities of the municipal variable of the Singular Income Tax (IRS) in the settlement of 2028.

At today's meeting, the executive voted by a majority to keep the IMI rate at 0.40% for urban buildings, with a fixed deduction of 30 euros for families with one dependent, 70 euros with two dependents and 140 euros with three or more dependents, and a 30% increase for degraded urban buildings.

The proposal was approved with three votes against – two from the PS and one from the Enough.

The maintenance of the variable rate of the IRS at 4.5% was also approved by a majority, with opposition votes against.

The executive decided unanimously to keep the spill at the maximum rate of 1.5%, with exemption for activities whose turnover in the previous accounting year did not exceed EUR 150 thousand.

The municipality also maintained in 0.25% the municipal Passage Rights rate, whose proposal was unanimously approved.

For the socialist João Paulo Rodrigues, the rate of IMI is "relatively high", in that the equity value of housing "is higher and constitutes a very large burden for people".

By justifying the vote against the councilors of the PS, João Paulo Rodrigues also pointed out that a high IMI rate “encourages people to buy home”.

The socialist mayor also argued that the variable municipal participation of the IRS should fall from the present 4.5% to the 4%, thus returning to the municipalities one percent of the five percent to which the municipalities are entitled.

The only councilman of the city, Hugo Fresta, stressed that Figueira da Foz is one of the municipalities of the district of Coimbra with the highest rate of IMI and that it is above cities of its size, such as Santarém and Pombal.

It also proposed that the municipality be reduced to 0.39% the variable municipal participation of the IRS, stressing that the maintenance of the tax package for 2027 ‘starts to show that the municipality has no margin to invest’.

During the discussion of the tax package for next year, the mayor stressed that there is no possibility of reducing taxes.

At the end of the meeting, in statements to journalists, Pedro Santana Lopes said that the municipality ‘is prudent and to keep the accounts balanced cannot risk changing the expected revenue and so the option is to keep the fees’.

“If we compare it with neighbouring municipalities, Figueira da Foz does not have a more serious fiscal policy,” said the mayor.

Santana Lopes pointed out that the municipality ‘has a lot of expenditure, a lot of investment, a lot of service and therefore the accounts must be balanced’, and that the rates ‘do not penalise the municipalities, especially the most disadvantaged, who do not pay IRS and normally do not pay IMI’.