The secretary-general of the PCP today accused the government of presenting a “fraudulent” program, stressing that the “great concerns it had with the tax burden” only translated into a reduction in corporate income tax for large economic groups.
In a speech at the “Festa da Juventude. Mais Abril”, in Lisbon, Paulo Raimundo argued that the government’s program is “one of deceit, deception and fraud”, especially with regard to its “tax proposals and measures, particularly with regard to the IRS”.
“It’s just like we said it would be: big headlines, big announcements about reducing personal income tax, big concerns about the tax burden, but after everything was squeezed out, the mountain gave birth to a reduction in corporate income tax for big companies and economic groups,” he criticized.
For the PCP leader, the executive works “for the owners of all this, for the big economic groups”, to whom “what is promised is always owed”.
“For them, there are no wrong accounts, no difficulties. For them, it’s just benefits. The only thing they really want when they talk about taxes is to reduce corporate income tax for big companies,” he accused.
Paulo Raimundo argued that the executive’s program is also “a real movement to throw sand in our eyes”, because what is needed today is “a general and significant increase in salaries”, “exactly what the economic groups, the ones who think they own everything, the ones who actually run the government, don’t want”.
“A lot of fun has been made of a statement I made, but I’m going to come back to it, maybe they’ll make less fun of it now. The only way to increase wages is to increase wages. There are no tax measures, no shuffling, no trickery that will solve this,” he said.
The secretary-general of the PCP stressed that the program is also “an open deception of young people”, considering that it only offers “more exploitation, more precariousness, more instability, more insecurity and another call for forced emigration” for the younger generations.
“There is a very small group of young people who will gain from the measures put forward by the government’s program, first and foremost those young people who sit on the boards of the big companies of the big economic groups. These are the ones who will benefit from the government’s measures,” he said.
Paulo Raimundo argued that the IRS Jovem measure presented by this executive is “a fallacy, with no impact on the vast majority of young people, starting directly with the 35% of young workers who are left out” of the measure.
“But here’s a challenge to the government to come out and say how many young people are actually covered by that supposed reduction in the personal income tax rate for young people. Let them say how many young people are actually covered by this measure, so that we can understand the fallacy,” he asked.
For the PCP leader, “the government’s recipe is a reduction in corporate income tax for large companies, masked by a supposed reduction in personal income tax for young people”.
According to Paulo Raimundo, in order to guarantee young people’s future prospects, “we need more wages, an end to precariousness, we need to guarantee the right to housing with measures that are already reflected in the day-to-day lives of young people, and not in the day-to-day lives of the banks and their profits.”
“The evictions law must be abolished once and for all. But the government has done nothing about this, or, as the other one said, a ball. Nothing on this matter,” he criticized.
Paulo Raimundo reiterated that the PCP can only count on a “firm fight” against right-wing politics, stressing that this was expressed “from the first minute” with the motion to reject the government’s program, which was rejected this Friday in parliament.
“A motion of rejection that made it clear who supports the government and who is willing to lend a hand,” he said, alluding to Chega, IL and PAN, who voted against the initiative, and PS, who abstained. PCP, BE and Livre voted in favor.