IL presses Government to comply approved recommendation to reduce ISP

A initiative recommends to the government to comply “without further delay” with the resolution that IL presented in May for the government to move forward with a reduction in the tax on petroleum and energy products (ISP) equivalent to the reduction in VAT on fuels from 23% to 13%.

The resolution was adopted on May 8 with the votes in favour of Ajuda, PS, PCP, BE, PAN and JPP, abstaining from the Free and opposition of PSD and CDS-PP and also recommended the application of reduced VAT in gas cans and the strengthening of public transport supply.

In this new draft resolution, the IL also requires the Assembly of the Republic to be informed “within 60 days of implementation of each of the recommendations”.

The party emphasizes the need for an “urgent descent of the ISP” in order to ensure a “reduction of taxes on fuels of at least 20 cents per litre in diesel and 23 cents per litre in gasoline”.

From the resolution adopted in May, IL also highlights the importance of strengthening the supply of public transport, through its frequency and capacity” and the “review of the laws governing telework, ensuring agile decisions between employer and worker, without additional burden to companies”.

In the explanatory statement of this project, the liberals recall that, after almost four months since the publication of the resolution in Diário da República, the “Government has so far given no public response to the state of implementation of these recommendations”.

“ Meanwhile, the price of fuels continues to increase and weigh on the budget of Portuguese families, and the high cost of living remains a cause of widespread complaint, just as the Assembly of the Republic had already identified and sought to address for more than four months ", they maintain.

The party also responds to the PS's criticism of IL for abstaining in April in a socialist resolution, which was rejected, which recommended that the executive reduce the VAT on fuels and gas from 23% to 13%.

The IL considers that “it is not acceptable to charge tax immobilism who, months before, had already led the Assembly of the Republic to approve, on its own initiative, a recommendation to the Government to reduce the tax burden on fuels”.

“The difference between the Liberal Initiative and the Socialist Party is therefore not in the desire to reduce fuel taxes, it is in that the Liberal Initiative has done so through an initiative that has gathered transversal support in the Assembly of the Republic and is already approved, whereas the Socialist Party prefers to make that recommendation a political instrument of accusation, rather than pressuring the Government to comply with what Parliament has already decided,” he says.

In the same document the party says that “the problem is not in any parliamentary block to the downfall of taxation”, but “in the inaction of the government in the face of a recommendation that has already had the support of the Assembly of the Republic for months”.

In a context of rising prices associated with the war in the Middle East, both Aquisa, with a bill that would only come into force following the approval of the State Budget for 2027, as the PS, with a new draft resolution, advocate the temporary reduction of VAT on fuel from 23% to 13%, as well as the application of zero VAT on a set of essential food items.