Data published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) found that the weight of taxes on the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) climbed to a new high of 35.4 percent.


The INE revealed in its latest report that revenue from taxes and social contributions last year amounted to €71.4 billion (€4.3 billion more than in 2017), growing 6.5 percent in nominal terms, after the 5.3 percent increase to 34.4 percent in 2017.


“The nominal growth of the tax burden in 2018 surpasses GDP [which was 3.6 percent], meaning an increase in the tax burden of 1.0 percentage points of GDP, to 35.4 percent,” the institute said in a statement upon the release of these latets numbers.


Assunção Cristas, leader of the CDS-PP party was particularly damning of the data, saying the Minister of Finance Mário Centeno had managed to outdo himself once again.


“The Minister of Finance has once again broken the tax record and has every year managed to successively beat his previous personal records, which are his trademark”, accused the leader of the conservative CDS-PP party.


The Prime Minister entered Parliament perhaps knowing these latest statistics would be brought up in the fortnightly debate which usually is dominated by questions levelled by opposition MPs at the ruling Socialists.


But António Costa had numbers of his own, using graphs coloured in yellow and blue, which happen to be the same as the CDS-PP party, and who had formed part of Portugal’s previous centre-right coalition.


He responded: “During your time in office, and thanks to the economic slowdown and the economic recession we experienced then, the economy contributed negatively to the GDP by 0.26 percent.


“In contrast, and as a result of the strong growth in jobs and an increase in wages, we have seen the tax burden grow by 0.9 percent of the GDP, thanks to improved economy.”


But Assunção Cristas insisted the Prime Minister had failed in his calculations, saying it was impossible to justify the ballooning tax burden as being the full result of economic growth.


“I’m sorry but you cannot explain the inexplicable, that the tax burden has risen above economic growth”, said the CDS-PP leader.
António Costa, in response to his opposite’s insistence, described her as “a difficult case” as despite being handed all the facts, she “insists on distorting the truth.”