At least four million home owners in Portugal are being overcharged when paying their their property rates bills (IMI), warns the consumer watchdog, Deco
The coefficients that go into the long and complicated equation used to calculate the annual property tax have been set so that, on average, each householder is paying an extra €100 or more.
Homeowners therefore have shelled out at least €92 million more on Municipal Property Tax in the last three years then they should have done, has the system been a fair one.
Deco has run more than 830,000 simulations on the paguemenosimi.pt website and reckons that because the Tax Authority’s calculation does not automatically increase the age of properties as the years go by, customers have been stiffed for an extra €92,205,347.
It’s not just the age of the property that has been rigged, Deco lists several indicators that have not been updated all helping sneakily to increase the tax take. The main one is the age of the property but the location coefficient also has been fiddled.
Deco says that four million property owners are being ripped-off, even those whose IMI was updated as late as 2016.
Finances does update property age, but only every three years, to its distinct financial benefit, or as a result of home owners asking for an amendment.
Deco first alerted consumers and the government in February, 2014 when in just over a month the simulator showed the rates scam had raked in an extra €6.5 million.
After three years of government refusing to fix the system, a total of €92 million unjustly and unfairly has been removed from homeowners’ pockets, around €115 per taxpayer.
