"The weight of indirect taxes in Portuguese tax policy is excessive, with all that this implies in terms of equity or lack of it" as indirect taxes are "blind".

Although at the level of the total tax burden Portugal does not compare badly with the rest of the EU, this is not the result when only indirect taxes are taken into account. Considering only this portion, Portugal occupies one of the top positions in the table, only surpassed by countries such as Croatia or Latvia.

As for the weight of direct taxes (which includes personal income tax) "there are clearly more developed countries ahead of us", he said.

Affirming that he is among those who don't mind paying taxes, because with this they buy civilization, Azevedo Pereira has "doubts" that the tax policy that has been followed "is compatible" with the Government's initial intentions of reducing the tax burden on social classes with lower income.

Pointing out that the proposed State Budget for 2020 does not contain "radical changes", it nevertheless projects "not insignificant growth" in tax revenue (2.8%) - above the expected growth in GDP.

In order to prevent the tax we pay from becoming explosive, it will be necessary to restructure State spending, a path he believes is possible, since he refuses to believe that public administration has to be "just and necessarily” a bureaucracy.