Paulo Núncio, the former Secretary of State for tax affairs, said that he took "political responsibility" for not publishing details of the €10 billion in transfers to offshore tax havens between 2011 and 2014.
The socialist party said Núncio’s admission proves neglect by the former PSD CDS-PP coalition government in not following up this significant financial outflow and in not allowing Tax Authority inspectors to check that the sources of the money were legitimate and that the account holders were fully tax compliant.
"The previous government was very effective in charging taxes to the Portuguese people ... but then was rather negligent in monitoring large financial flows to offshore destinations," said the socialists’ national secretary, Eurico Brilhante Dias, adding that the previous government had had an "increased responsibility" at a political level, because these transfers occurred at a time when "the Portuguese people were asked to sacrifice a great deal.”
Last Friday night, the former director general of the tax authority Azevedo Pereira said he twice had asked the former Secretary of State, Paulo Núncio, to publish data on offshore money transfers, but was refused.
It is not too late to check these accounts and charge taxes where due, as there is a 12 year window of opportunity for the Tax Authority to assess and charge taxpayers, or in this case, possible ‘tax evaders.’
Azevedo Pereira said that Núncio in fact had thwarted the publication of this key data by issuing a blocking notice that admits the data has been seen but is not to be acted on.
Had the data been for publication, it would have been possible to resolve any (alleged) computer problems at any time over the subsequent four years. In fact the data was sat on deliberately so as not to expose friends of the right wing coalition
By hiding this data, the Tax Authority’s inspectors were not aware of these transfers to tax havens, so could not investigate them.
There is no record of Paulo Núncio apologising for this huge error that left taxpayers funding the fiscal gap left by these successful transfers to tax havens.
