OE: IL proposes changes to “relieve cost of living” focused on housing

A Liberal Initiative (IL) presented 36 proposals to amend the State Budget for 2027 focused on housing, fuel and labour income tax, to “relieve the cost of living of the Portuguese”, today released the party.

In a statement, the party led by Mariana Leitão explained that the housing area concentrates most of the proposals, stressing that “the houses are expensive because there are few”.

Among the proposals are measures such as “ 6% VAT on construction for housing that works in practice: priceless roofs, no validity period and without forcing families who build their home to advance 17 percentage points of VAT to the State”, “the exemption of IRS for five years for those who rent a house that has been off the market” or “the exemption for those who sell and free housing, including inheritances”.

IL also defends the “IRS rate on rents, permanently reduced, which falls to zero in longer contracts” and “IRS deductions with interest on unfrozen housing credit for contracts up to 2026 and increased, and deduction of increased rents for those who earn less”.

On fuels, the party proposes to lower the ISP to the European average of fiscal effort, maintain support for farmers' fuels by 31 December 2027 and end the Extraordinary Contribution on the Energy Sector (CESE).

For the relief of income taxes, IL proposes “to lower the IRS by about €1.6 billion, more than four times the fall that the government approved in September 2026”.

IL also detailed on how to pay for this measure, which the government committed to Brussels “not to allow net expenditure to grow by more than 1.2% in 2027, and its own report shows a deviation of around EUR 1.6 billion”.

“ This is the value we propose to return in IRS ", vincou.

“ The rule we propose is simple: primary current expenditure cannot grow more than the nominal GDP foreseen by the government. Expenditure continues to rise, just not faster than the country. If the economy grows above expected, the extra revenue serves to lower taxes, reduce debt or invest,” he added.

The IL also presented “proposals that stop waste”, such as “requiring the parliament’s permission to enter the capital of private companies and ending the tax benefits of political parties”.