Portugal's Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, fresh from the parallel planet which he inhabits, has denied the existence of any past of present problems with the Finanças website.
Paulo Núncio seems blissfully unaware of the torrent of customer complaints that followed periods of dismally slow performance by the website at a time when tens of thousands of diligent citizens were trying to enter their tax returns.
Even the Ombudsman pointed out that all had not been well, that the Tax Authority web portal had malfunctioned at key times and that it had asked the government to investigate what had gone wrong.
The Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs assured everyone today that the portal was operational and had been just fine during April and May this year as during these two months more than 4.7 million people has entered their tax returns online, as did more than 435,000 companies.
The tax workers' Union frequently has complained that the antiquated website is not up to the job and will not be fooled by Nuncio's statements that there were no problems.
In May, Portugal’s Chartered Accountants body applied in court for an extension of tax submission deadlines due to ‘recurrent problems’ with the Finanças website.
The injunction was lodged in the Tax Court of Lisbon in the face of the government's view that ‘statistics show’ that the Finanças web portal is operational, a stance that defied credulity.
Website problems led an exasperated Order of Chartered Accountants to write Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and Finance Minister Maria Luís Albuquerque, but to no avail despite their injunction stating that "recurrent problems encountered" in the Finanças portal have prevented Chartered Accountants fulfilling their tax obligations to their clients.
By denying that the site had suffered problems, fines for the late entry of tax returns and other time-sensitive submissions will be sent out as usual with no leeway given for those that were unable to access the site during its periods of lethargy. If this is Núncio's plan, it is cynical one.
By lying about the problems encountered by citizens, accountants and company fiscal department staff, the Secretary of State has made himself look arrogant, foolish and untroubled by thruthfulness.
