Tax union protests in front of AR

Perto of 100 workers of the Tax Workers Union (ITS) today protested, in front of the Assembly of the Republic (AR), to demand the end of seven years of lack of regulation in the careers of the Tax and Customs Authority (AT).

“ Since we do not have the permanent evaluation to work, to reach the top of our career, most of our colleagues are only after the age of 90. No one will get there”, said the president of STI, Gonçalo Rodrigues, in statements to Lusa.

Gonçalo Rodrigues asked the government to regulate, since “it is impossible to make progress in good time until retirement”.

This concerns the delay in the implementation of the permanent assessment model for special careers professionals for inspection, management and audit.

This system was defined in 2019 when the last diploma on the special careers of the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) was published, Decree-Law No. 132/2019 of August 30, but so far the regulation has not been verified.

The document provided that the Government, through an order of the members “in charge of finance and public administration”, should define the “methodology, procedures and results related to ongoing evaluation”.

“ Our career is not a career that has very high wages. If people can’t get through, for example, here in Lisbon you can’t afford a house,” the union president explained today.

On October 29, the union stated that it expected that the proposal for a State Budget for 2027 [OE2027] would take into account the increasing difficulties of taxpayers in accessing the in-person assistance of the Tax Authority.

According to the STI, “it is a structural problem, denounced for years: lack of workers, the frames are not renewed and the pressure on care does not stop growing”.

In this context, the union called on the Government and the parliamentary groups “to have the courage” to include, until the overall final vote, on 24 November, in the OE2027 “words for the recruitment of workers, the enhancement of careers and investment in the services of the Tax Authority”.

Asked today about the OE proposal, Gonçalo Rodrigues said that “the budget does not influence the situation at all, because everything that is more detailed and that can generate greater controversy, the government does not lead to the OE”.

For the union leader, the government has no interest in resolving this situation, because “there is an open negotiating table since January and at two meetings nothing has been done”.

In front of the Assembly of the Republic, in Lisbon, almost 100 trade unionists shouted, with the sound of drums and whistles, slogans such as “in the sun and rain the struggle continues”, “tax fraud, national shame” or “without authority there is no equality”.